



Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary 



Planting of Providence. 



AN ORATION 



THOMAS DURFEE, 




Class. 
Eook_ 



'If.. 



HISTORICAL DISCOURSE 



DE'.I.IVICKKI) ON IIIK 



Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of 
the Planting of Providence. 



THOMAS 1)1 RKKK. 



I'ROVIDENCK 
S ID N K Y S. RID K R 



Tin> DiscoifRSK WAS dki.ivkkku in fiik First Bapiisi Church, in 

Pr<)\ IDKNCE, Jl'NK 24. l8S6. 



<rk 



^y 



^^'ia 






Proi'hhiicc /'r.'.v.s Co., Printt-t 



DISCOURSE 



The traveller who, after a long day's journey, reaches the 
summit of some high hill which overlooks the way behind 
him, delights to pause with backward gaze and review the 
scenes through which he has passed. As he retraces his 
wavering course over hill and dale, by forest and river bank, 
or along the mountain's bulging breast, the great objects, the 
prominent features, stand out at once in luminous distinction ; 
then gradually the lesser points of interest, with hints and 
suggestions from which his memory fills out the picture ; 
until at last his whole journey, tedious some times in the 
making, lies before him, flooded with the golden evening light, 
a pure and perfect pleasure in . the retrospect. To-day the 
citv pauses on such a high specular summit, and, looking 
backward through the vista of two hundred and fifty years, 
sees the long series of her historic experiences rising in vis- 
ionary pageant before her. She, too, makes out at once the 
great events, the magnificent passages, of her history ; then 
matters of lesser moment bringing in their train a crowd of 
recollections. She remembers, as she gazes, her thousand 
bitter toils and trials ; her thousand bitter dangers and dis- 
asters and troublous vicissitudes ; but with bitterness and 
trouble no longer ; for now she rejoices to remember how 
bravely she met them all and how heroically she endured or 



overcame them. She remembers, too, her great industrial 
successes, her great military and naval exploits, and more 
than all, she remembers, with a memory cleaving to the inner- 
most fibres of her being, her \-ictorious sufferings in the 
sacred cause of spiritual freedom, and a divine joy, trium- 
phant and tender as the roseate flushings of the dawn, over- 
spreads her majestic countenance. Superb and beautiful 
Mother ! she beckons us, her children, to come up and share 
her grand delight. She charges me to speak for her, and 
interpret her birthday vision of her past, explaining, as best 
I can, the forces and the influences which have made her 
what she is, which have contributed to make us what we are. 

I'ELLOW Citizens: — lam sensible how impossible it is 
for me to do justice to the occasion, The story of two hun- 
dred and fifty years cannot be told in an hour. Much must 
be designedly omitted. If I err by treating some points with 
too much, and some points with too little fullness of detail 
and reflection, I can only crave your indulgence, and ask you, 
each for himself, to supply my deficiencies. 

Providence was planted by Roger Williams, together with 
his companions and followers, mostly from Massachusetts. 
The causes of the plantation were certain opinions which he 
held, and which, in accordance with his character, he pro- 
claimed. Some controversy has existed from the first in 
regard to both the opinions and the character, and latterly it 
has been renewed in Massachusetts in an intensely partisan 
spirit. I deem it proper, therefore, to restate the opinions 
and to portray the character anew. For more than forty 
years the historv of Rhode Island, and of Providence in par- 



irm 



5 

ticular, was largely shaped and influeneed !))• Rot;er Wil- 
liams, and I shall eonsider it a great gain if I can, by retell- 
ing a trite tale, succeed in impai-ting a fuller, truer and li\-elier 
conception of his character. 

Born in Wales^ and educated at Cambridge University, he 
became a clergyman of the Church of JCngland, but scjon 
re\()lting from it on account of what he considered its Romish 
perversions, he broke with it utterly, and fleeing before the 
persecution of Laud, crossed the (jcean to begin a new life in 
the New World. His flight cost him bitter pangs, — "bitter 
as death to me," he wi-ote twenty years later ; but he was 
obliged either to fly or to dissemble his con\ictions ; and for 
him, as for all noblest natures, a life of transparent truthful- 
ness was alike an instinct and a necessit)-. I'his absolute 
sincerity is the key to his character, as it was always the 
mainspring of his conduct. It was this which led him to 
reject indignantly the compromises with his conscience which 
from time to time were proposed to him. It was this which 
impelled him when he discovered a truth to proclaim it, when 
he detected an en-or, to expose it, when he saw an e\il, to try 
to remedy it, and when he could do a good, even to his ene- 
mies, to do it. He had the defect of his qualities ; — an inor- 
dinate conhdence in his own judgment. He had also the 
defects of his race ; — the hot W^elsh temper, passionate and 
resentful under provocation, and the moody Welsh fancy, — 
the wild and wistful melancholy of the Cymrian bards — too 
apt in his earlier years to disturb his mental balance with 
morbid scruples or desultorv conceits, magnifying them into 
matters of lasting moment. Such a man would have been 
likely to provoke antagonism anywhere ; in Massachusetts. 



with her immitigable theocracy, he was sure to incur censure 
and final expulsion. 

Roger Williams lived five years in Massachusetts before 
he was banished. He spent the first six weeks in Boston, 
the rest of the time in Plymouth and Salem, and yet Boston 
was the seat of hostile proceeding against him. How did 
it happen that he was most hated where he was least known ? 
The explanation is simple. The new churches of the Bay 
were both bigoted and ambitious. They had established a 
sacerdotalism, more meddlesome and scarcely less despotic 
than the worst in Christendom. They wanted to consolidate 
and extend it. They had hitherto met no opposition ; but in 
Williams they found an original and independent mind, 
intractable to their yoke. Soon after his arrival, being in- 
vited to become a teacher of the Boston church, he refused, 
because the church still held communion with the mother 
church, and he coupled his refusal with emphatic reproof. 
Will you say that his conduct was as uncharitable as impru- 
dent ? I make no apology for him further than to remark 
that the Anglican Church was then not only a retrogressive 
and a persecuting church, but also a main support of the 
autocratic pretensions of the Stuart kings. He had suffered 
from it in person, and he thought that to commune with it 
was to abet its tergiversation. The j^oint, however, which 1 
invite attention to is the utter frankness of his self-deliver- 
ance. The elders of the Bay, accustomed to a submissive 
deference from their j unions, were thunderstruck by it and 
never forgot or forgave it. They followed him to the senior 
church at Salem, to which he was soon called as teacher, 
witli expostulation to the church for calling him, and so 



weakened his hold there that he was glad, a few months later, 
to remove to the more liberal jurisdiction of Plymouth. 

He remained at Plymouth, teaching in the church, hut 
supporting himself by manual labor, nearly two years. His 
ministry was popular in the main and his person universally 
liked. Finally, however, he advanced some opinions which 
did not suit the steady-going Plymouth elders, and therefore, 
departing "something abruptly," he returned to Salem. 
There he acted as assistant to Mr. Skelton, the aged pastor 
of the church, and when Mr. Skelton died, less than a year 
later, became his successor. At Salem he was again under 
the surveillance of the rulers and elders of the Bay, and they 
were swift to make him sensible of it. He had written in 
Plymouth, for the Plymouth Governor and Council, a treatise 
on the Massachusetts Patent, in which he had maintained his 
doctrine that the King could not give the settlers a right to 
take away from the natives their land without paying them 
for it. He was not a lawyer but an ethical teacher, and it 
was doubtless as such that he maintained this opinion. In 
our day its ethical correctness is not disputed. It has always' 
been good Rhode Island doctrine. He also criticised the 
patent because in it King James claimed to be the first 
Christian Prince who discovered New England, and because 
he called ICurope Christendom or the Christian World. Wil- 
liams did not scruple to denounce these formal fictions in 
downright Saxon as lies. He does not appear to have been, 
at any period of his life, a paragon of conventional propriety. 

A rumor of the treatise got abroad, though it remained un- 
juiblished. The patent happened to be a sensitive point with 
the magistrates It had been (granted in P^ngland to an P2ni>- 



lish trading company, and its transfer to Massachusetts was 
an act of questionable legality. Moreover it was exceedingly 
doubtful whether the rulers, in exercising the extensive civil 
jurisdiction which they claimed under it, did not exceed their 
authority. They were apprehensive of proceedings to forfeit 
it, and therefore were easily alarmed at any turning of atten- 
tion to it. When they heard of the treatise they sent for it, 
and, having got it, summoned the author "to be censured." 
He appeared in an unexpectedly placable mood, and not onlv 
satisfied their minds in regard to some of its obscurer pass- 
ages, but offered it, since it had served its pur]50se, to be 
burnt. The magistrates, propitiated bv his complaisance, 
appear to have accepted the offer as cqui\'alent to a promise 
of silence, though it is impossible that he, the uncompromis- 
ing champion of aboriginal rights, can ever ha\c meant to 
give, or even appear to give, such a promise. Accordingly 
when they heard soon afterwards that he was discussing the 
patent they were deeply incensed, though it was doubtless 
the popular curiosity excited by their f)wn indiscreet action 
which elicited the discussion. 

Their anger was aggravated by another doctrine then put 
forth by him, namely, that an oath ought not to be tendered 
to an unregenerate, or, as we should sav, an un religious man, 
because an oath is an act of worship, and cannot be taken bv 
such a man without jjrofanation. The sentiment resembles 
that which lately led the House of Commons to refuse the 
oath of office to a member-elect because he was a professed 
atheist. He also taught that an oath, being an act of wor- 
shi)), could not properlv be exacted from any one against his 
will, and that even Christians ought not to desecrate it bv 



Uikini; it for trivial causes. This latter \ie\v likewise finds its 
modern analogue in the growing feeling that oaths, too indis- 
criminately administered, lose their sanctit\' and come to he 
regarded as little more than idle forms, 'i'he doctrine was 
specially offensive at the time because the (General Court, 
alarmed by a report of " episcopal and malignant practices 
against the country," had just then decided to test the fidel- 
ity of the ])eople by tendering to them an oath wliich was 
virtually an oath of allegiance to the colon\' instead of the 
king. The measure was obnoxious to legal as well as relig- 
ious objection. It was oj^posed by the people as well as by 
Williams, and for the time frustrated. It has been said that 
his opposition was a blow at the very foundations of civil soci- 
ety ; but in Rhode Island a simple affirmation or subscription 
to an engagement, has been found as efficacious as an oath. 
The magistrates again instituted proceedings against him, 
at first subjecting him to the oixleal of clerical visitation, then 
formally summoning him to answer for himself before the 
General Court. At the same time the Salem church was 
arraigned for contempt in choosing him as pastor while he 
was under question. The court, however, did not proceed 
to judgment, but allowed them both further time for repent- 
ance. It so happened that the inhabitants of Salem had a 
petition before the court for "some land at Alarblehead 
Neck, which they did challenge as belonging to their town." 
The ccjurt, when the petition came up, refused to grant it 
until the Salem church should give satifaction for its con- 
tempt, thus virtuallv affirming that the petitioners had no 
claim to justice even, so long as they adhered to their recu- 
sant pastor. Williams was naturalh indignant He induced 



lO 

his church — -"enchanted his church," says Cotton Mather — 
to send letters to the sister churches, appeahng to them to 
admonish the ma<;istrates and deputies of their " heinous 
sin." He wrote the letters himself. His Massachusetts 
contemporaries say he was " unlamblikc." Undoubtedly they 
heard no gentle bleating in those letters, but rather the 
reverberating roar of the lion chafing in his rage. The 
churches repelled the appeal ; and then turning to the Salem 
church, besieged it only the more assiduously, laboring with 
it, nine with one, to alienate it from its pastor. What could 
the one church do, — with the magistracy against it, the clergy 
against it. the churches and the people against it, muttering 
their vague anathemas, and Salem town suffering unjusth' on 
its account, — what could it do but yield ? It yielded \ir- 
tually if not yet in form ; and Williams stood forth alone in his 
opposition to the united power of Church and State. If. in 
the agonyof his isolation, his heart distracted and his niinti 
unstrung, "a power girt round with weakness," he uttered 
words better unuttered, we surely can afford to forget them 
and leave them for his traducers to gloat over if they will, 
while wc remember only the grandeur of his solitary struggle. 
The fateful court day came at last. The court assembles, 
magistrates and deputies, with the clergy to advise them. 
Williams api)ears, not to be tried, but to be sentenced unless 
he will retract. He reafifirms his opinions. Mr. Hooker, a 
famous clerical dialectician, is chosen to disi)ute with him. 
and the solemn mockery of confutation begins. The future 
of Rhode Island, to some extent the future of the world, 
hangs suspended on the issue. Will he, like his church, worn 
out and desj^erate, blenching before the unknown, lose heart 



1 1 

;iii(l yield.' Never! He stands unshaken in the " rockie 
strength " of his convictions. Me is ready " not only to be 
bound and banished, but to die for them." So, hour after 
hour, he argues unsubdued, till the sun sinks low and the 
weary court adjcnirns- On the morrow [Friday, October 9, 
1635], still i^ersistiuL; in his y;lorious "contumacy." he is sen- 
tenced, the cleru,")' all sa\-e one adx'isini;', to be banished, or. 
to adopt the apologetic but felicitous euphemism of his great 
adversary, John Cotton. " enlarged " out of Massachusetts. 
He was allowed at first si.\ weeks, afterwards until spring, to 
depart. Hut in January the magistrates, having heard that 
he was drawing others to his opinion, and that his purjiose 
was to erect a plantation about Narragansett l?ay. "from 
whence the infection would easily spread," concluded to send 
him by ship, then ready, to England. The story is familiar 
how Williams, advised of their intent, baffled it b\- plunging 
into the wilderness, where, after being "sorely tost for one 
fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing 
what bread or bed did mean," he settled, with the opening 
spring, on the east bank of the Seekonk, and there built and 
planted. 

Thus tar I have not mentioned his great doctrine of soul 
liberty. There are those who maintain that it had nothing 
to do with his banishment. Let us see. When, shortly after 
his arrival, the Massachusetts authorities rebuked the Salem 
church for choosing him as a teacher, they urged two objec 
tions to him. namel\-. his rigid separatism and reproof of the 
l^oston church, and his ojiinion that "the magistrate ought 
not to punish for breaches of the first table unless thereby 
the civil peace be disturbed. ' this being the form in which 



12 

he then declared the right of the soul-Hberty. This shows 
that Williams had, immediately upon his arrival, proclaimed 
the doctrine, and that the magistrates had immediately rec- 
ognized its utter imcompatibility with the cast-iron polity 
which they were endeavoring to establish. When he was 
arraigned, three months before the sentence, the doctrine 
was one of the "dangerous opinions" laid to his charge, and 
the clergy being consulted, declared that he who should obsti- 
nately maintain that the civil magistrate cannot intermeddle 
to stop a church from heresy or apostasy ought to be removed. 
The clergy were ready to banish him for that alone. Wil- 
liams says his doctrine was one cause of his banishment. 
He also says that when the sentence was pronounced. Gover- 
nor Haynes recapitulated the grounds of it, his maintenance 
of soul-liberty being one. We have seen that the magistrates 
wanted to prevent his plantation because they feared " infec- 
tion " from it. What infection ? Did they think, if he 
preached on Narragansett Bay the duty of a rigid separatism, 
the inadequacy of the Massachusetts patent, or his theory of 
oaths, that far-off Boston would hear among her triple hills 
the ringing echoes of his sermon .'' It is absurd to suppose 
it. No ; what they feared was a contiguous plantation where 
faith would be free and persecuted consciences find a refuge. 
What they feared was soul-liberty put in practice ; and if they 
feared it in practice on Narragansett Bay, would they tole- 
rate the preaching of it in Massachusetts .'' The question 
answers itself. Other matters may have angered them more 
at the moment, but this was the animating principle, the 
great tap-root of all' Williams's offenses, and it is incredible 
that they did not perceive it. It was, in fact, a virtual denial 



of the very jurisdiction which they exercised when the\- Ix'ui 
ished him.- 

Permit me to pause a moment longer at this ])oint. The 
Massachusetts historians tell us that the treatment ol Wil- 
liams was exceptionally gentle and considerate. This is true. 
He was neither incarcerated, nor scourged, noi" hanged, like 
some later victims of Puritian persecution. The treatment 
of him does not attract curiosity and rivet attention because 
it was unusually se\-erc, but because it was a pivotal transac- 
tion in universal history. His trial involved not him alone, but 
also the grand idea which he represented, and it fascinates 
mankind because, while he was condemned, the idea tri- 
umphed through his fidelit)', and because, though he ma\' 
have been banished, it at least was "enlarged." The histo- 
rians say, in excuse for Massachusetts, that she did but fol- 
low her instinct of self-preservation. In one sense this like- 
wise is true. She was then simply an incor])oration of Puritan 
Congregationalism clothed with civil powers. She could not 
accept the new idea without undergoing a transformation 
into a larger and freer form. She chose to preserve herseli 
as she was. She who has reaped so many glories in her 
crowded career was not ripe for this, the most glorious of all, 
and so with mistaken scorn she passed it on to little Rhode 
Island. But this is not what her historians mean. They 
mean that she was in jeopardy from the opinions put forth b)' 
Williams in regard to oaths and the patent. This is a singula]- 
exaggeration. He was only a village pastor. He had little 
or no influence beyond his parish — for there were then no 
newspapers, and he had no vantage of political prestige or 
position. The only way in which his opinions were likely to 



become generally known was by persecution. The historians 
urge further that he was eccentric, pugnacious, persistent, 
troublesome. Undoubtedly he was. When nature wants to 
preserve a precious seed, she encloses it in a bitter and 
prickly integument. So when the time comes, in the order 
of human improvement, for a new and progressive idea, we 
often find it lodged in a tough and thorny and, if you will, 
pugnacious personality, to fight for, protect and propagate it. 
Williams had his faults, but some of them, in the circum- 
stances, did the work of virtues. A man who had to endure 
what he had to endure from Puritan clergymen and elders, 
laboring to "reduce him from his errors," was entitled to have 
some faults. The faults which he had have been grossly exag- 
gerated. The apologists of Massachusetts, with zeal beyond 
knowledge, have raked the gutters of controv'ersy and ran- 
sacked the rubbish-heaps of unaccredited rumor for testi- 
mony against him, forgetful that he was, with all his failings, 
the trusted and cherished friend of John Winthrop, the 
wisest and the best of the Puritans. Massachusetts can 
spare such apologists. She banished Roger Williams not for 
faults of behavior, but for errors of opinion. Her great desire 
was to found an orthodox State, — a State where the same 
theology should be preached in all the pulpits and believed at 
all the firesides, and where, generation after generation, her 
citizens could become religious and virtuous according to 
law. The individualism of Roger Williams antagonized her, 
and she expelled him because, thank Heaven, she could not 
assimilate him. She was, indeed, exacerbated by her per- 
sonal and political antipathies and resentments, but her main 
motive was to be true to her darling orthodoxv. For lons^ 



15 

vears she was true to it, cloin<;- ugly and cruel things for the 
sake of it, stamping it broad and deep on her people, and 
only gradually learning, by bitter experience, that human na- 
ture is too vital and vast and various to take the mould of any 
compulsory creed without injury, but needs for its best de- 
velopment the elastic and congenial element of soul-liberty. 
She has nobl)' atoned for her narrowness by the universality 
of her later culture. We are all glad to learn of her now. 
Nevertheless she does not forget the iron discipline of her 
infancy, but still, through all the endless variety of her newer 
predilections, looks reverently back to it, and still points, 
with hereditary ])ride. to her permanent strain of Puritan 
orthodo.xy as the vcr\- backbone of the Commonwealth. To 
this day the Massachusetts man, when he talks of orthodo.xy, 
means the Calvinistic creed of the Puritans ; whereas the 
Rhode Islander, when he talks (^f orthodo.xy, which is seldom, 
means his own creed, if he ])rofesses any, though doubtless 
they both alike now know full well that absolute orthodo.xy 
is only a delightful dream of the theologian or the philos- 
opher — not the privilege of mankind. 

We left Roger Williams in Seekonk. He had built there 
and planted. April came, and May, and his corn was spring- 
ing to gladden him with hope of harvest. He expected to 
abide there ; but now a message, sent by Governor Winslow, 
informs him that he is within the limits of Phmouth, and 
advises him to move across the river. He accepts the advice 
and, sometime in June, breaks up and departs. In fancy we 
can follow his little boat, laden with his household, as it 
emerges from its shadv haven, and pushes out into the See- 
konk. It turns st)uth\vard with its silent passengers, and 



i6 

slowly they make their wa}', in the unbroken solitude, betwixt 
high wooded banks, reduplicated in the ]:>ellucid river, luxu- 
riant with verdure and glittering with the sunshine of June. 
C But the sylvan landscape haH no charm for them. They see 
their Seekonk home receding, and their hearts fill with an 
uncontrollable anguish. Thrice exiled — from England, from 
Salem, from Seekonk I Will an implacable persecution 
ne\er cease to pursue them .'' They paddle on with mourn- 
i\\\ memories ominous of evil instead of hope. But hark ! 
an animating salutation, IV/iatc/icer, Netop, Whatchccr, rings 
from a neighboring rock, and the red men of the forest give 
them the welcome which their white brothers have refused. 
They halt and return the greeting. Again they proceed 
under happier auspices, and, with their sounding oars, startle 
the wild duck from the river's rushy marge and daze the 
antlered stag on the remoter hill. They round the precipi- 
tous cliffs of Tockwotton, and, gazing southward through 
the varied vista of the river, catch momentary glimpses of 
the bay beyond. The noble prospect does not detain them. 
They turn to the north and, hugging the eastern shore, 
ascend along the base of towering hills, clad with primeval 
oaks, and enter the cove, whose natural basin, receiving 
the unpolluted tides of the bay and the virgin waters of 
the Woonasquatucket and the Moshassuck, diffuses them 
widely into inlet and pool, across sandy bar and over sedgy 
flats, now traversed by busy thoroughfares, but then fre- 
cjuented only by flocks of feeding waterfowl or by the dusky 
fowler in his frail canoe. They continue their steady course 
until before them they behold a spring, which, gushing from 
the verdant turf and jjouring its crystal tribute to the cove. 



17 

invites them to disembark. There, beaching their boat on 
the smooth white sand, they step ashore — Wilhams, his 
wife, his children and his five companions. They slake their 
thirst at the spring, they invoke the divine blessing, and Provi- 
dence Plantations are begun. =^ 

The story of the beginnings of a State or city, truly told 
in detail, is always interesting. The story of infant Provi- 
dence cannot be so told. Unlike Boston, she had no diarist. 
Her public records are imperfect. We do not know how her 
settlers, without seed-time or harvest, subsisted the first year. 
The bay with its fish and fowl, the forest with its game and ber- 
ries, must have been their constant resource. They jirobably 
procured some supplies from the natives. There is no tra- 
dition of desperate destitution such as more than once befell 
the Plymouth settlers. We may be sure, however, that their 
life was outwardly very poor and plain, full of hardship and 
privation, pinched at every point, however it may have been 
spiritually enriched by the freedom which thc\' enjoyed. 
But if their story could be told, my time is much too short 
for me to tell it. I must be content to pass raj^idly from 
point to point, briefly treating a few of the more character- 
istic topics. 

Two topics of interest from their relation to the infant 
town and its founder meet us at the threshold. When Wil- 
liams went from Plymouth to Salem he drew several ])ers()ns 
after him. When he came to IVovidence, he had five compan- 
ions and was soon joined by others. They seem to have been 
not fugitives, but followers. These facts show that, however 
contentious he was, he had along with his contentiousness, 
a singularly attractive nature. The ingenuous cleverness 
.5 



i8 

which in his youth won the favor of the crabbed but intrepid 
old jurist, Sir, Edward Coke, still bore its natural fruit 
"The people," says Winthrop, " were taken bv the apprehen- 
sion of his godliness," which, translated into modern speech, 
means that he had, besides his more distinctively Christian 
graces, some of the magnetism of a po]:»ular leader. This, 
not less than the prospect of religious freedom, drew the 
earliest settlers. But they were the merest handful, and they 
would not have ventured, remote from succor, among a pow- 
erful tribe of savages without some assurance of safety. 
Williams could give it. He had, during his stav in Plymouth 
and Salem, zealously cultivated the good will of the natix^cs, 
learning their language and studying their character, his 
"soul's desire" being to become a missionarx among them 
" God was pleased," he sa\s, "to give me a painful, patient 
spirit to lodge with them in their filthy, smoky holes to gain 
their tongue." He was thus, as it were, providentially pre- 
pared foi" his work. He had the affable disposition, at once 
communicative and incjuisitixe, which easily captivated these 
simple children of the forest. The\ , too, were taken by the 
magnetism and master)' of bis high moral qualities. They 
instinctively believed in him. The great Narragansett 
Sachems, Canonicus and Miantonomi, distrusttul of the iron- 
visaged elders of the Ba), ga\e him their friendshi]) without 
reserve. The\ deeded to him a teiritory like a ])rinci- 
pality, and he, with siiiiilar munificence, shared it equally with 
his fellow-settlers. riuis his influence o\cr his countrxnien 
drew around him tlie nucleus of the new State, and liis in- 
fluence over the Indians gained for it domain and security 
For more than a generation the little plantation lay .safely 



19 

nestled and iostered in the \ery lap ot barbarism. tht"()Ui;h 
the un\va\"erin,i; regard entertained fur him by these savage 
but mai;nanim()iis sachems. The citv has testified its grati 
tutle to him in imperishable bron/e and granite ; it ought to 
testifx' its gi'atitude to them in some ecpialh ap])ro|)riate form 
The settlers soon telt the neetl ot a civil go\ernment. 
but the\ hat! no charter under which the\ could establish 
one. rhe\' therefore agreed to be governed b\- "the major 
assent" of the freemen of the town "only in ci\"il things." 
At first the goxernment was a puic democracy, all the powers 
being cxei'cisetl by the freemen collecti\el\' in town meeting. 
It was too laidimentarN' to last. In [640 a new svstem was 
agreed to, b\ which the ]:)owers were delegated to some 
extent and ])rovision was made for compulsorx- arbitrations in 
judicial matters. I'his was a step forward, but onl\- a short 
step tentatively taken. In 1647 the town united with the 
three other towns, Portsmouth, Newport, and W'aivvick, 
'"■under the first charter. This charter was sim[)lv a grant ot 
ci\il ])owers. not a constitution. it left the settlers to frame 
a government for themselves. The government formed by 
them was rather a confederatioii of the towMis than a com])act 
State. Under it no law could be enacted without the con- 
sent of the towns. It has been likened to the Federal 
Union ; but the integration was far less organic and com- 
plete. It was not until later, under the second charter, that 
the towns were willing to part with their autonomy and 
become fully subject lo a central authority. But. mean- 
while, the first charter was a great boon to the settlers in 
their relations with the sister colonies, since it affiliated them 
to the mother countrv and leiritimated their iiovernment 



20 

It will be observed that soul-liberty was secured in the 
first compact, not by grant, but by limitation, the settlers 
agreeing to be governed "only in civil things." This was 
characteristic of Williams, who wrote the compact, though 
he did not sign it ; for his doctrine was that every pian has a 
natural right to follow the dictates of his conscience, so long 
as he keeps the civil peace ; a right which the State can 
neither give, nor take away, nor control, even with the con- 
sent of the individual, since no man can absolve himself from 
fealty to his conscience. The limitation was tantamount to a 
constitutional declaration of the right in its widest meaning, 
covering not only freedom of faith and worship, but also free-- 
dom of thought and speech in every legitimate form. The 
right has ne\er been expressed with more completeness 
There are some who would have us think that the phrase 
"onl)' in civil things," was simpl}- a lucky hit, and that Wil- 
liams, when he coined it, did not really comprehend its sig- 
nificance. My opinion is that both then and before then his 
doctrine was that the authoritx' of government extends only 
to civil things, and that he had merely to exchange his pulpit 
phraseology for the plain vernacular of the people to make it 
manifest. The man who packs such a world of meaning into 
four little words does not do it by a slip of the |)en. He 
clearly saw the principle and its universality; if he failed to 
foresee all the questions which might arise in applying it, and 
to solve them in advance, he sinij^ly failed to do then what 
no man since then has succeeded in doing. There is, 
between the undisputed provinces of civil law and spiritual 
freedom, a disputed frontier which never has been, and prob- 
ably never can be, definitively apportioned 



We soniclinK's hear it saitl thai the idea ot soul-Hberly was 
not ()riii;inal witii Rot;er W'ilhams. (7rant it. lie needs no 
doubtful bhizon to enhanee his <;loi\. When the (ireat 
Master deelared, "(iod is s])irit, and they who worship Mini 
must worship in spirit and tiuth," He lifted religion into a 
res^ion far al)o\e all earthlv rule, the region ot souldiberty. 
The ehurch did not or would not so understand Him. It 
arrogated iidallibi]it\' and spiritual domination, and perseeu- 
tion for iieres\- logicall\' ensued In the multitude ot mar- 
tyrs there were doubtless some who obseureh' felt, and others 
whodimh diseerned, the great truth. But did the\- utter it ^ 
If the\- did, their words passed like a broken eeho in the con- 
tusion ot the times. History- has no record of them. Idle 
common cr\ was for toleration, lor toleration as a policx, not 
as a right. BiU at last the chuich si)lit into sects, and the 
Protestant sect again split, and splintered again, and the 
individual conscience, breaking trom its pupilage, grew sud- 
denlv into a deeper and e\er deeper sense ot its own inner 
su[)remac\ . '["hen it was that the master idea emerged, 
uttered feebl\- at tirst, not 1)\- powerful leadei's in church and 
State, but 1)\ despised sectaries hunted b\ the law. I'hen it 
was that W'illiams recei\ed it. Peihaps he lead it in some 
stray tract or pam|)hlet, such as then were scattered secretly 
in England, like seeds droi)ped by biids in their flight ; per- 
haps he heard it in some noctiu'nal conxenticle, from lips 
still livid with the jnun of the pillory and the branding iron ; 
or perhaps he listened to it, in some lonelv lane or footway, 
from a fellow fugitiw communicating it as they fled. Some- 
how it came to iiim, and he brought it, termenting in his 
l)rain. to the N'ew World For five years he meditated and 



maliircd it amoni; the stubborn dogmatists of Plymouth and 
the 13ay. He was an impulsive enthusiast, easily eaptivated 
by new ideas, but it was charaeteristie of him to examine 
them to the bottom and abandon them if he found them 
baseless or unsound. His contemj)oraries describe him as 
"ljreei])itate and unsettled, " haxing "a windmill in his head." 
They saw the superficies of his character, not its deep foun- 
dation. His faith in soul-libert^• never waxered. He came to 
Rhode Island to e\'ang"elize the natives ; but when he saw 
the opportunity offered by the settlement growing around 
him, he recognized the proxidential work aj)pointed for him, 
and set himself to jKM-form it. He had not mei"el\- taith in 
his iilea. but he had also such a master)' of it that he knew 
how to put it in practice. This is his glory, that he, first 
among men, made it a living element of the State, turning" -it 
from thought to fact, and giving it a corporate existence in 
which it could perpetuate and j^ractically a]3pro\e itself. 
There is no i)Ower like the powei- of a great idea when it once, 
gets a firm foothold among men. The great idea, here first 
politically incorporated and shown forth in lively experiment, 
has made the circuit of the globe, dri\ing bigotry like a mist, 
and su])erstition like a shadow before it, and sowing bi"oad- 
cast among meii and nations the fruittul seeds ot })eace and 
progress, of freedom and fraternitw The little wisp of glin)- 
mering light which hung like a halo over the cradle of infant 
Providence, has brightened and expanded until it irradiates 
the world. I'his is and will be forever the unique glory of 
our belo\ed cit\'. 

The first settlers were e\))osed to a triple dangei- : l^^rom 
the Indians, from the neiirhboriny colonics, from their own 



^3 

(lissension.s. TIk- Narraj;ansott.s, th()u.t;h triciidl), wcil- l)ut 
(tnc of several tribes What if tiie tribes, alarmed by the 
rapid increase of the whites, were to unite foi their destruc- 
tion ? Such a union was projected by the I'equots, a powei" 
ful Connecticut tril)e, durini; the first year of the settlement 
In the autumn of that \ear Pecpiot ambassadors were at the^ 
court of Canonicus to win o\er the \'arra_i;ansetts The 
Massachusetts luleis, informed of it, sent hastil\- to Williams, 
to a\ert the jierii Takini;- his life in his hanti. he sped, in a 
|)oor canoe. thi()u,i;h stornn winds and threateninj; seas, to 
the ,i;reat sachem's wigwam. Idiere tor three d.ns and three 
nij^hts he was forced b\ his business to " lodj^e and mix with 
the l*e(.|Uots, looking; ni,i;htl\ foi- their bloodv knix'cs at his 
throat." Me finall\- defeated their desi<;n and effected a 
league between the Narra^ansetts and the l'!ni;iisii which 
was quickly followed 1)\ the annihilation of the Pecpiot tribe. 
Subsequenth he perfoimed other similar serxices. Do you 
ask me if his persecutors relented.^ No! Winthrop pio- 
posed his recall, but the\' rejected the ])roposal. The)' pur- 
sued a Machia\elian policx with the Indians, fomenting- their 
quarrels, reckless of the safet\ of Rhode Island. They 
harassed the Xarragansetts. who were L;'uilt\ ot belriending 
the kht)de l-~land heretics, b\ haish e.xactions. and mad- 
dened ihem l)\- counselliuL; the wicked muider ot Mianto- 
nomi b\- Mohe^an L'ncas.' In 164^ the colonies of I'Uniouth, 
Massachusetts, (."onnecticul and N'ew ilaxen tormed a con- 
federacv for mutual defense. The Rhixle Island towns were 
not inxited to join it. 'i'he\ asked to join it. but lhe\ were 
denied unless the\ would subject themscKes to I'lymouth 01 
Massachusetts (he condition was refused Ihey preferred 



24 

the terrible hazard of Indian massacre to security on such 
terms. Fortunately the good will of the Narragansetts kept 
them unmolested until the storm of Philip's War broke 
over New England, and after carrying havoc to the outlying 
villages of Massachusetts, swept the mainland towns of 
Rhode Island like a hurricane. In that war the Narragan- 
setts ])erished with the Wamjjanoags, and the dread of 
Indian hostilities ceased to trouble the colonies. 

The danger from the neighboring colonies was more insid- 
ious and scarcely less formidable. They hated the heretical 
towns and pertinaciously sought to destroy them as inde- 
pendent bodies politic by extending their jurisdiction over 
them. Plymouth, already iu undisputed possession of the 
eastern shore of Narragansett Bay, claimed the island of 
Rhode Island ; Connecticut, the Narragansett country ; and 
Massachusetts, parts of Providence and Warwick. It would 
be tedious to explain the grounds of these claims, or to 
describe the efforts which were put forth, both here and in 
England, on the one side antl the other, to establish and 
defeat them. The contest was long and severe, but on the 
part of Massachusetts, the bitterest aggressor, grounded on 
the baldest usurpations. It involved not only the territorial 
integrity of the Rhode Island towns, but also that soul-lib- 
erty, so dear to them all, which was staked on their preser- 
vation. The contest was a blessing in disguise. It put the 
towns on their mettle, and it developed among the people, by 
giving them one great endangered interest to protect in 
common, that jjublic spirit which is so necessary to organic 
civil life. They came out of the contest, triumi)hant at last, 
but when they came out of it, they came fused and welded 



25 

together, by the heat and pressure of their struggle, into a 
single conimoinvealth. 

I mentioned a third danger, — the dissensions of the 
settlers. The population of Rhode Island, of Providence 
especially, was singularly heterogeneous. She offered her- 
self as an asylum for distressed consciences. The conse- 
quence was, ]irofessors of every form ot dissent trom the Pur- 
itan faith were re|)resented here. There were men, too, who 
came, not so much because they were heretical as because 
they were peculiar, and in the pr(jmiscuous medley here, 
coukl comfortably enjoy themselves. Indeed, life in Prov- 
idence, in those days, must have had a spicy zest and variety 
not to be found elsewhere in New iMigland. Hut it had its 
dangers, too. Soul-liberty was suppi)sed to give every one 
the right not only to entertain but also to utter his every 
opinion. When men claim and concede this right they have 
need not only to be considerate of others, when they speak 
for themselves, but also ])atient of others when the\- find 
themselves contradicted. This is a degree of self-control 
which is seldom acquired without discipline. The first set- 
tlers had had no discijjline, and, yielding to their natural 
impulses, they gave their tongues too free a license. Ihe 
result was a plentiful crop of feuds and controversies, some 
of them envent)med by \indictive passions. Politics caught 
the infection, aud became virulent and factious. Roger Wil- 
liams tried to play the part of peacemaker, but he was wiser 
in precept than in jjractice. His feud with William Harris 
was one of the most inveterate that afflicted the Plantation. 
Harris was a man of prodigious force of will and great 
natural abilitv. but aggressive and violent, ever ready to 



26 

embroil the comnnmity to cany his eiui.s. The settlers 
called him the Firebrand. It was a feud of this kind which 
gave Massachusetts, by submission to her of some of the 
parties, a pretext for setting up her jurisdiction in Providence 
and Warwick. Apparently, therefore, the first effect of soul- 
liberty was an excessive indixidualisni. l-'or the purpose, 
however, of testing its practicabilitx', nothing could have 
been better ; for if soul-liberty was then practicable here, it 
was not impracticable anywhere. It successfully stood the 
test. Under the second charter the danger from internal 
discords and disorders diminished, and gradually, after 
Philip's War, the peoi:)le settled to the hard and monotonous 
work of material and business develojiment. 

Shortly after Philip's War an event occurred which deser\'es 
mention, namely, the death ot Roger Williams. His servi- 
ces to the colon)' had been varied and great. Me had twice 
\isited ICngland for hei" ; first to procure the first charter, and 
again to procure the revocation of C"oddington's commission: 
He had often fdlcd the liighest civil offices at home. He 
had served as captain of militia in Phili])"s War when seventy^ 
seven vears old, so indomitable was his patriotism. I have 
largeh' depicted him alieadv' ; 1 wish to add a few touches 
more. He has suffeied in the po]ndar conception trom two 
causes. On the one hand, his fame as the b'ounder oi the 
State has shed over his character a sort of mythical glamour, 
which has not so much idealized as unrealized it. Nothing- 
could be falser. No more real piece of human Hesh of tough- 
est l^ritish tibre ever existed. ( )n the other hand, the fame 
of his {)olemical writings has produced a difterent and wholly 
incongruous imi)ression ; namely, that he was simply a violent 



-'/ 



and incorn^ibk' (lis]nitant. who iia<l ihc Im k to maintain one 
new and ;;ood idea. 'I"his l,M'oss1\ talsirtes hv e\a<^^cration. 
As a cttntro\ crsialist he had the \iet's ot liis temper and his 
times; hut one mi^ht ahnosl as well tr\ to portray Milton 
from his pamjjhlets as Williams from his polemical writin[;"s. 
Let him who would learn what manner ot man he was from 
his writings, read his letteis, not one hei"e and there, but thi- 
series consecuti\el\ , so as to realize their eimiulative effect, 
and he will liradually become aware that he is makini; tin- 
acquaintance of a lar^e and affectionate, philanthropical, pub 
lie-spirited ami many-sided nature. I lis versatility was 
e.\traordinar\". lie was, by turns, leporter. scholar, cler<.jy- 
man, trader, farmer, diplomatist, teacher, lin,«;iiist, lei;'islator, 
jud<.(e and man of letters. A man is denoted bv his friend- 
ships, lie numbered amon^ his friends the Winthrops, Mil- 
ton/TX ane and Cromwell, the noblest of his contemporaries, 
lie was. in his da\ . the most modern mind in .America. lie 
exhibited, two luuulied and fift\ \-ears ai;o, the humanitarian- 
ism which is su|)i)osed to be ]x'euliar to the present century. 
His ma<jjnanimity was inexhaustible. " Sir." (iovernor Win 
throp wrote to him, •• we have often trieil \-our patience, but 
we could nexer conc|Uer it." The \ajjorous theolorrical fan- 
cies which sometimes unsettled him in .Massachusetts, seem 
to have vanished utterK in ]>Jhode Island in his preoccujia- 
tion with practical affairs Nevertheless, his censors object, 
he was headstroiii; and j)u;;nacious to the end ; — as witness 
his ♦)Tislau;;ht upon the Quakers The objection must be 
allowed ; but then he had the am])litude and the strength ot 
the u^narled oak .is well as its notlosil\. ami when he died, a 



28 

great figure passed away, and Rhode Island history became 
more commonplace and uninteresting. 

From Philip's War to the Revolution was a century. The. 
history of Providence during that century has no striking- 
event until the last decade, preluding the Revolution. It is 
not, however, so much the striking events as the permanent 
results of an era that determine its importance. Eras which- 
furnish the least for history have sometimes done the most . 
for mankind. Sometimes, too, an era of dull monotony, 
showing on its surface little besides a steady material prog- 
ress, has terminated in a great political change, which was' 
all the while proceeding, by processes unrecognized, to its 
consummation. The century which ended in the Revolution 
was such an era. The material conditions then created and 
the material resources then accumulated were indispensable 
to the success of the Revolution. Nor could anything have 
been more favorable than just such a jilodding j^eriod to the 
uninterrupted development of that sj)irit of independence 
which culminated in the Revolution. But this is a wider 
view than belongs to the occasion ; though, considering the 
prominence of the city in the Revolutionary war, a suggestion 
of it is not impertinent. 

The question for us now is, What were the builders and 
makers of the city doing during the century after Philip's 
War.' Thev had first to repair the ravages of that war. 
When it began, the town contained from seventy to eighty 
houses. More than half of them were burnt. Before the 
attack upon the town, all but a very few of the inhabitants 
tied to the island of Rhode Island for .security. Many of 
them never returned We d(.) not know the number of the 



29 

population rcniaininL; attcr the war, but it cannot have 
exceeded a tliousand all told ; thou<;li thetnun then embraced 
the entire county and a jxirt of Kent It we could see the 
site ot the city as it then was after leparation, we should sec 
simply a single row of houses, mostl\' rude cabins, strunj; 
alon<i the eastern shore from Fox Point to the mouth of the 
Moshassuck, clusterini; a little at the northern end. lO the 
east \\c should beholil tlie hills still im])erfectl\ leduced 
to tillafi^e, and to the west a wild waste of water and wood, 
with some natural herbaf;e for cattle and thatch for the cabins 
If we were to enter the houses we should find the rudest fui 
niture and utensils in scant supjih , and the inmates clad in 
durable, but extremel\- homelv and well-worn attire. The 
life the)' li\ed was unembellished, but rac\' and wlu)lesome as 
wildiiii;" fruit. The great elementary sources of human hap- 
piness were theirs — home, family, friends, self-government, 
soul-liberty, and souml minds in sound bodies — and without 
stoppiuL; to ask whether life were worth living;, they manfulU 
set themseh"es to subduing the rough earth to their uses, 
which was then the great work to be tlcMie 

This first work was exceedingly laborious. l-"oiests had to 
be felled, stumps eradicated, rocks and stones unearthed and 
rem(»ved. walls built, the soil reclaimed, wolves and foxes 
exterminated, roads laid out and made, and bridges con 
structed. All this had to be accomplished with the poorest 
implements. The patient drudgery— the tireless muscular 
and mental energy — of the first two or three generations of 
our fathers, bevond what was necessarN- for a meagre li\eli- 
hood, was thus stored up and indestructibly capitalized in the 
ver\ substance of the soil for the benefit of their jjosterit)- 



Land, say some of our modern theorists, is tiie free <;'iit of 
nature, and it can no more be appropriated without injustice 
than the air or the ocean. What a silly fiction as applied to 
the farms of New England. 

But what were the villagers on the ri\er-bank here doing? 
They, too, were making the rough earth tillable and tilling it. 
Bucolic associations linger all about these hills. The houses 
had each their home lot, laid out to the eastward, with gar- 
dens, orchards, cornfields, and beyond them meadows or pas- 
tures with lowing kine. But the settlers also had' the river 
and the bay before them inviting their enterprise. They 
were soon familiar with its treasure of fish and clams. Canoes 
and graduallv boats were built. The growth was ver\' tardy. 
Governor Hopkins counted the houses in 1732 and found 
only seventy-foui" on the east, and only twelve on the west 
side of the river. ^^^ The settlers were without exception poor. 
The capital necessary to organize industry had to be accumu 
lated by the slow savings of years. The first business organ- 
ized for other than local purposes, was ship or vessel-build- 
ing, quite extensively carried on at the mouth of the 
Moshassuck. This led naturally to an increase of commerce, 
at first with Newport and other American ports, and finally 
with the West Indies and the .African coast. Commerce with 
the West Indies and Africa introduced tiie first considerable 
manufacture, which was^ — I would gladly soften the shocks 
the manufacture of New l<2ngland rum. Foreign commerce, 
however, did not greatly flourish here before the Revolution. 
It was intercepted at Newport, which was more favorably sit- 
uated for the reception of foreign imports and ft)r their coast- 



^1 



wist" (listiilnitioii. and whieh mi)H.-n\ci . owini; to its j;rcatci 
wealth, had .i;(>t the carliL-r start 

It is not to 1)L' sujiposcd that thi- conmicicL- ol Proviilcnce 
measures the extent to which the inhabitants ot Providence 
- were eni;a_i;ed in maritime pursuits. As her jiopulation 
inci'eased. man\ ot her l)o\s aiid xouni; men, inured to liard- 
Nhi|) hut tiled ot tarm Hte and thirstini; tor ad\ entine. enhsted 
m Newport merchantmen and whaleships. Durini; the 
French and Si)anish wars a still more excitiui; ser\'ice alUired 
them. Numei'ous prixateers were fitted out, man\ ol which 
|)rosecuted their |)erilous work with brilliant success. Tiuis 
was bred up and disciplined that liard\ race ot skilltui mari- 
ners, intrepid as enterprising, the ver\ \'ikin_i;s ot the l\e\o 
lution, who, (hu'ini; the wai", made the ])ri\ateeis ol I'rovi-'^ 
dence a terror to British C(,)mmerce. Much ot the shippinj; 
ot Newjiort, duriuL; lier occupation b\ the Hritish, was trans- 
ferred to Providence, and there used in comiuerce or priva- 
teeriui;. Ax tlie close ot the war the commerce ot Newport 
was ruined, and Proxidence, haxiui;' the ships and the sailors, 
took the lead. h'or more than tort\ \ears her commerce 
pr()S[K'red and increased. Her merchantmen and whaleships 
ploui;hed ever\ sea. ami her harboi" was spectacular with 
stateK \essels. coiuinj; and <;()ini;. or ladim; and unladiui; at 
her bus\- whar\e>. The prominent business men ol that" 
jieriod -the Hrowiis. the heses, the Arnolds, the lio|)piMs. 
Cvrus Butler. Richmond Bullock, lulward C"aninL;lon ami 
others - were merchants eni;a_<;e(l in commerce. All luuioi 
to them' l-'or the\ not onlv built i\\) the cit\ while the\ 
built u\) their own fortunes, but the\ also introilucetl into the 
citv. alonu. with the commodities of many climes, the liberal 



32 

spirit and the larger ideas which are inspired by contact with 
many nations. At no time, if tradition may be trusted, has 
Providence society more happily combined simplicity with 
elegance and cordiality with intellectual charm. But the 
introduction of railroads changed the course of trade, and . 
foreign commerce left the city for Boston and New York. 
Her deserted wharves now testify only of a glory which has 
passed. 

I have passed beyond the Revolution, let me return to it. 
The Revolutionary record of the city, like the Revolutionary 
record of the State, is preeminently patriotic. The State had 
long suffered in her commerce from Parliamentary taxes and 
restraints, and was therefore the more sensitive to any new 
encroachment. For more than ten years before the war her 
attitude was increasingly belligerent. The Stamp Act was 
a dead letter here. No Governor would swear to support it ; 
no officer dared administer it ; and the General Assembly 
nullified it. In 1775 the State created a navy of her own, 
and gave the command of it to Abraham Whipple, of this 
city, who, obedient to his orders, forthwith captured the ten- 
der of the British frigate Rose, then off Newport, firing the 
first cannon fired at the Royal Navy in the war. The same 
year she recommended the creation of a Continental navy. 
Congress heeded the recommendation, and when the fleet 
was built, appointed Esek Hopkins, a North Providence man, 
to command it. It was comparatively a simple matter for a 
State so long habituated to the practice of self-government, 
to renounce her allegiance. She renounced it and declared 
her independence two months before the declaration by Con- 



33 

gross, and she is to-day the oldest sovereign State in the 
Union. 

The city went heartily along with the State in all these 
movements, some of which she originated. She eagerly 
embraced every voluntary measure of non-importation and 
domestic manufacture by which the colonies manifested their 
independence. She first suggested, and by her decisive 
action in town meeting, led the way to the Continental Con- 
gress of the Revolution. The popular spirit here was sig- 
nally shown as early as 1772 in the burning of His Majesty's 
armed revenue schooner the Gaspee, grounded on Namquit 
Point, while chasing a sloop belonging to John Brown, an 
eminent merchant of the city. At his call xolunteers mus- 
tered by the score to burn the hated vessel, and, manning- 
eight long boats under the command of Abraham Whipple, 
swooped down at night upon their cjuarry. After an exchange 
of shots, in whicli the first British blood in the Revolution 
was spilt, they captured thu crew, put them ashore, then set 
the Gasjice on fire, and retiring saw it burst into flames and 
paint the midnight sky with a lurid joortent of the approach- 
ing conflict. It was a patriotic and retaliatory but illegal 
act. Nevertheless, its jDcrpetrators were safe, though large 
rewards were offered for their discovery, because the ])eoj")le 
who did not participate in it were of the same mind with 
those who did. 

The city had the good fortune to number among her citi- 
zens a genuine statesman. Stephen Hopkins was a great 
man — great not only in capacit}' and force of mind, but also 
— what is much rarer — in originative faculty. He early 
investigated the question between the mother country and 



34 

the colonies in its constitutional aspects, and marshalled the 
arguments on the side of the colonies with masterly ahility. 
He found, moreover, an argument for independence, deeper 
than the logic of constitutional legitimacy, in the very nature of 
things, forbidding that this great country should remain merely 
a serviceable dependency of Great Britain. The value of his 
leadership cannot easily be overestimated ; but nevertheless 
his prescient mind never went farther in thought than his fel- 
low-citizens were ready to follow in action, so cognate to him 
was the community in jvhich he lived. If ever the city sees 
fit to commemorate her Revolutionary services in bronze or 
marble, let her pass the military and naval hero by and erect 
a simple statue to her great civilian, for he certainly, in his 
time, was her most representative man." 

The Revolutionary history of the State is too familiar for 
rehearsal to-day. The population of the State at the com- 
mencement of the war was 55,000. For several years the 
islarid of Rhode Island was occupied by British troops, and 
the bay patrolled by British cruisers. The State was thus 
crippled in resources, and, owing to her extended water 
fronts, exposed to incessant depredations. She was obliged 
to incur heavy expenditures in men and means for her own 
protection. Nevertheless she nobly responded to the conti- 
nental requisitions on both sea and land, and on the sea 
she far excelled, proportionately, any of her sisters. The 
city generously seconded the State. Her ]-)0})ulation was 
only 4,355 ; and her men cajjable of bearing arms 726. But 
if her men were few, her spirit was resolute ; and forever, 
when the thrilling stories of Mifflin, and Trenton, and 
Brinceton, and Yorktown are told, her prowess will be cele- 



J3 



bratcd anew, and the martial j;l()n' i)t' I litcluock. and Thayer, 
and Talbot, antl Olnev wdl he freshly reflected upon her. 

Rhode Island came out of the war decimated and impov- 
erished. The State and people alike stag<icred under a load 
of debt. it has been said there was not projierty enou<;h in 
the State to pa\ tiic debt. The crisis was des])erate. and 
the (ieneral Assenil)l\' met it with a desperate remed)' ; 
namely, an emission of paper monc}' to the amount ol one 
hundred thousand pounds. 'I'he remed)- operated in ]xirt as 
a bankrupt law and in i)art as a process of i^ratlual litpiidation. 
It alleviated distress by diffusing it. But the ])aper rapitlly 
depreciated antl, b\- unsettling; \alues, caused paralysis in mer- 
cantile transactions. The General Assembly enrleavored to 
arrest the depreciation by severe penal laws, but without suc- 
cess. Things follow their tendencies regardless of human 
legislation. l'"iction can never be trusted to do the work of 
fact. The swift, shar{) remed\- b)' bankiuptc}-, puie and 
sim[)le. would doubtless have turned out much better than a 
resort to paper mone\', if the people would have submitted 
to it. The business of the State, its cmnmerce especially, 
was irreparably injured by such a resort. The city appre- 
ciated this from the first. She was always on the side ot a 
sfiunder polic}', and gradually caused it to prevail. 

Rhotle Island took no part in forming the l*'ederal Ct)nsti- 
tution, and was the last State to adopt it. Iler ])eople had 
alwavs freely go\-erned themselves, and naturally hesitated 
to assume Federal tluties antl restraints. They coultl not 
know, what we know so well, how light the pressure is of 
those tluties and restraints, how immeasurable the advantages 
which accrue. Thev could not then know what we now 



36 

know, that the Federal Union liberates far more than it 
restrains, in that while it is in one sense a limitation shutting 
down upon the States, it is in another and much truer sense 
a marvellous supplementary structure over-arching them, 
by which the people ascend to a participation in the larger 
influences, the ampler horizons, the grander and nobler life 
and destiny of the Nation. The opposition, however, was 
not so much opposition to the Federal principle as to the 
lack of constitutional safeguards, afterwards largely supplied 
by amendments. The seaport towns. Providence especially, 
always urged adoption, and finally secured it, though not un- 
til after too many exhibitions of factious and purely partisan 
resistance. 

Contemporaneously with the adoption of the Federal Con- 
stitution, a young Englishman appeared here, bringing, 
pictured in his memory to the minutest detail, complete pat- 
terns of the Arkwright spinning machinery. A fortuitous con- 
versation in New York with the captain of a Providence coast- 
ing" sloop led to his coming ; but it was no mere fortuity 
which determined him to remain. He remained, an inhabitant 
of the State, because he found in Moses Brown and William 
Almy open minds to entertain and espouse his projects, with 
wealth to execute them, a people capable and apt for his 
enterprises, and an abundance of water power. Nearly a 
century has gone by since Samuel Slater set his first seventy- 
two spindles into successful operation at Pawtucket, and, in 
the long retrospect, how magical his work appears, how mar- 
vellous and manifold the transformations which have resulted 
from it. The forces of nature became his apprentices. He 
touched, as it were, with his simple labor wand, the mighty 



I 



37 

river giant, squandering his unused strength among our 
northern hills, and, subduing, bound him forever to the ser- 
vice of mankind. lie mustered, as it were, from wood and 
waste, from valley and hillside, from rocky ridge and corru- 
gated cliff, the idle genii of a thousand wandering streams 
and reduced them to like obedience. In consequence of the 
impulse communicated by him, \'ilkiges and hamlets have 
sprung up along the banks of every water course which is 
capable of turning a mill-wheel. It is appalling to think 
how severely the State must have suffered, in the irreversible 
decay of her commerce, but for this new industry, which, 
graduall)' expanding, has continually opened new opportunities 
for labor and capital. The progress has not been an isolated 
progress. All the arts which minister to human happiness 
are more or less closely linked together — liaboit quoddani 
co)nuiHiic vincu/iiJN — and when one flourishes the others are 
improved. The new industry gave a new market to the 
farmer. Many a Rhode Island farm would have been 
deserted before now but for the manufacturing village built 
beside it. It furnished employment to the mason, the car- 
penter, the carrier, the laborer. It brought custom to the 
merchant and the trader. It laitl out highways and built 
railroatls. It has given impetus to other manufactures, 
and to the mechanic and decorative arts. No part of the 
State has profited so much by it as this city. No part is 
more dependent on it for its prosperity. It behooves her not 
to let it decay. The South can manufacture the coarser fab- 
rics more cheajjly, because her labor and raw material cost 
her less, and she will soon supply her own market for them. 
Rhode Island, therefore, to preserve her prestige, must aim 



38 

more and more at beauty antl perfection of workmanship, 
and to that end must carefully cultivate every art and disci- 
pline which will promote, and carefully avoid every practice 
and policy which may defeat her aim. 

My accomplished friend and former instructor, the President 
of the Rhode Island Historical Society, in a recent address 
to the society, has luminously shown how largely the State 
has been influenced and controlled in her material growth by 
her geographical features. ' The great feature of her geog- 
raphy is her magnificent bay, which, with its wealth of land- 
locked waters, its beautiful islands, its diversified shores and 
picturesque configuration of headland and haven and bay 
within bay, penetrates far inland, and which, safe of approach 
and easy of access, stands, as it were, with open arms and sea- 
ward look, inviting the commerce of the world. It indi- 
cates for the State, and especially for the city sitting regnant 
at its head, a commercial vocation. Another prominent fea- 
ture is the numerous rivers and watercourses which, fed by 
tributary streams, descend with increasing volume to the bay. 
This feature makes the State, as if by the ordinance of na- 
ture, a manufacturing State. Commerce and manufactures 
— we have seen how both have flourished at different times ; 
commerce flourishes no longer ; but the great geographical 
peculiarity which formerly encouraged and prospered it 
still remains ; it remains for the people, therefore, without 
relaxing their hold upon manufactures, to revive it, and then, 
prosecuting both together, to fulfill the two-fold destiny pre- 
figured for them in the jirimordial structure of the State. 
What is there to prevent this, whenever a general revival of 
American commerce occurs, if then the city, having com- 



39 



])lctccl Ikt railway connections with the west and the iiDith 
and established suitable terminal facilities, shall ha\e anion^ 
her wealthier citizens a few able men who are cnter|)risinf; 
and safijacious enoiij^h to improve the opportunity ? 

AmoUL; the influences which ha\e formed the cil\', the 
inHuc-nce of pojjular education has been prumincnt. Rhode 
Island was backward in estahlishiuL;' anv system of free 
schools. The distinction between secular and reli,LCious 
instruction was formerly less clearly undci'stood than now ; 
and it was therefore cpiite natural for the peo])le of Rhode 
Island to cpiestion the rii^ht of the State to interfere in the 
matter of education. ()ther causes concuired. Man\- of 
the towns were ])ooi" and their po])ulation sparse. Men have 
to be educated to some extent in ortler to apjireciate the 
value of education. It thus happens that the estaiilishment 
of free schools is often the most bitterly opposed by those 
who neetl them most. It was so in Rhoile Island. Our first 
provision for such schools was enactetl in iSoo, at the in- 
stance of the Providence Association of Mechanics and Man- 
ufacturers. The act was unjjopular, the jieople beini( unpre- 
|xued for it, and, three years later, it was repealed. The city, 
howexer, haxini;" established her s\stem, continued it not- 
withstanding; the repeal. The s\stem, _L;"reatlv altered and im- 
proved, still exists. It needs no eulo^\- ; it is the cit)'s pride. 
I'".\ery year numerous inijMls <;raduate with a useful I'ji^lish 
education, such as the colleges of fift\- \ears ai;d were incom- 
l)etent to imjxirt. The effect has been to enlarge, elevate 
and diversify the industrial life of the cit\. It is the public 
schools of the city which have kept her in the Iront rank 
of business cities. They have retined and in\ i<;orated her 



40 

domestic, social and civic life. She owes a great debt of 
gratitude, which it well becomes her to acknowledge, to those 
public-spirited citizens who, nearly a century ago, persever- 
ingly recommended the system to her people and finally 
secured its establishment, and, not less, to those other public- 
spirited citizens, who, in long succession, without recompense, 
have superintended its operations, and who, by their con- 
tinued suggestions of change and improvement, have gradu- 
ally carried it to its present high efficiency. Many public 
services have been more prominent ; few more useful or 
meritorious. 

The public schools do much, but still they only make a 
beginning. They do best when they not only instruct but 
also arouse their pupils and inbreed in them a noble ambition 
for improvement. Such pupils continue to learn while they 
continue to live. And the city does well to afford them educa- 
tional aids, for it is among such that she must mainly look 
for her leaders in action and thought, and she will be fortu- 
nate if she never looks in vain. The citizens have not been 
unmindful of the value of such aids. Let me mention the 
Athenaeum and the I'ublic Library, the Mechanics Associa- 
tion, the Franklin Society, the Franklin Lyceum, the Histori- 
cal Society, the Veteran Citizens' Association, the Soldiers 
and Sailors Historical Society, the Young Men's Christian 
Association, the Union for Christian Work, the Art Club, 
the Commercial Club, and the Board of Trade. Everybody 
appreciates the value of a good public library, especially when 
like ours it affords guidance as well as opportunity. The 
associations mentioned arc less generally valued ; but they 
are all useful when rightly used. A good cause, a great idea 



4' 

or a good example is never safer llian when it is in the keep- 
ing of a society organized to develoj) and disseminate its 
influences and to pass them on with accumulated power trom 
generation to generation. Such societies lift their mend)crs 
out of themselves by giving them high social or public 
purposes to work for, which is a primary point of civil disci- 
pline. They furnish :in arena where new jjrojccts and 
opinions can be winnowed and sifted in debate and their 
crudities corrected by the common criticism. They arc 
organs through which the solitary student or thinker can 
readily reach the public ear. Some of them educate their 
members not only in the theory, but also in the practice of 
philanthropic and Christian \irtues. They ought to be per- 
petually re-invigorated with new life and energy, for the 
city cannot afford to have them languish and decay. 

Passing by the powerful influences of the churches and the 
press, I will mention one other educational agency, namely, 
Brown University. I am aware that many citizens listen 
with incredulit.\- when the value of the Univcrsit}' to the city 
is mentioned. It does not, like the public schools, come 
home to every family and fireside, associated with the irre- 
sistible charm of childhood, and so does not gain the popu- 
lar heart. But consider how much the city would be imi^ov- 
erished by the loss of it. Consider the many eminent citizens 
of Providence who have graduated from it, — luldy, ]\Ia.\cy, 
Burrill, Fenner, Russell, Pitman, Burges, Wheaton, Whipple, 
Staples, Ames, Anthony, Jenckes, Arnold, the Iveses, the 
Aliens, and others, living and dead. What a cloud of wit- 
nesses for it, and witnesses, as the lawyers say, to be weighed, 
not counted. What a benefit to the city, to have had such 
6 



42 

citizens. They gave her not their serv'ices only, but also 
their distinction. Imperfect as they were, they were con- 
tinually doing something to keep fresh in the ])ublic mind 
those loftier ideals of manhood and citizenship which no peo- 
ple, however prosperous, can forget without degeneracy. 
Consider, also, the more direct influences exerted by the 
University. President Wayland lived among us nearly 
forty years — a mind of extraordinary calibre — foremost 
in every good cause, educational, industrial, philanthropical, 
or reformatory, and prompt to answer every call upon 
him for counsel or instruction in every crisis or exigency 
of the city, the State or the nation. Associated with him 
was Professor Goddard, an elegant but robust mind, singu- 
larly sensitive to the significance of passing events, and 
ready always to lavish his rich treasures of wisdom and rare 
graces of expression in the inculcation of correct opinions on 
the important political and social topics of the time. Need I 
remind you, also, of the lamented Diman, with his finished 
scholarship ever at your service; of Chace, with his acute 
intellect and large grasp of practical affairs, or of other col- 
lege officers, living and dead, who have deserved well of the 
city ! The danger to a city given over to business, immersed 
in gainful pursuits, is that it will come to consider money the 
supreme good. You all know what that means. It means 
moral and spiritual corruption and decay. Now, I maintain 
that the University has been, and, if sustained, will continue 
to be a powerful counter influence. It communicates a tone, 
a sentiment, an atmosphere — blowing freshly from the fields 
of literature and philosophy, — an addition of new men, with 
their faces set toward the sunrise, introducing new motives 
and new ideas. Now and again it has given us leadership. 



43 

f do not culdKizc il; it has its (Icticioncics; it ou-ht to be rein- 
forced and iniprcned. ^'oll appreciate its deficiencies, which 
is well ; I want you also to appreciate its value, which would 
be better; and then, best of all. to labor heartily for its 
improvement; makint;- it what it should be. the educational 
crown and brii;htest ornament of the city. 

It was not until iS^j that Providence became a city, with a 
City (iovernment, by Mayor, Aldermen and Council. Ihe 
first Mayor was Samuel W. Bridj;ham, a };entleman and lawyer 
of hi<;h re])ute. His successors, Thomas M. Burj;ess. Amos 
C. Barstow. Waller R. Dan forth. ICdward V. Knowlcs, James 
V. Smith, William M. Kodman, Jabez C. Kni<;ht. ("reor-;e L. 
Clarke, William S. llayward and Thomas A. Doyle have all 
been able and energetic, some of them eminent men. Their 
names speak for them. Alas ! that the office is vacant to-day, 
and that he, the latest of them, who would most have rejoiced 
in this hig^h festival, lies cold and dumb in his recent grave, 
taken away by a m\sterious l*rovidence when we most con- 
fidentlv counted on his j^resence. For years he has been so 
completely identified with the city that it seems almost like 
a \iolation of natural law for the celebration to |)roceed 
without him. Our e\es still look for his familiar figure, oui- 
ears still listen for his clarion voice, ami, though batHetl and 
disappointed, still lefuse to be convinced that the\ will 
see and hear him no more forever.*^ 

The cit\ has been fortunate, also, in her Aldermen and 
Common Councilmen. The list includes numerous excellent 
and al)le. and manv distinguished men. They served at first 
gratuitously, more recently for a small compensation. Man- 
ifestlv, however, their services have been rendered, not for 



44 

the pay, but to satisfy that sentiment of public duty which is 
the soul of good citizenship. For years now the service has 
been very onerous, recjuiring great prudence and sagacity. 
In the last quarter of a century the population of the city 
has more than doubled, and her costliest public works have 
been constructed. During that period water has been intro- 
duced, the City Hall and many other public buildings have 
been erected, numerous new streets have been laid out, and 
numerous old ones altered and improved, bridges have been 
built and sewers constructed, and the police increased and 
reorganized. Doubtless the city owes much to the indefati- 
gable energy of Thomas A. Doyle, very much to his exhaust- 
less enthusiasm of civic service, but he could not have pressed 
these great works to completion without the cooperation of 
the Aldermen and Councilmen. Their accomplishment has 
involved an immense outlay of money. It would be folly to 
say that there has been no waste or extravagance ; but it is 
safe to say that there has been no wanton waste, and that 
many -things censured as extravagant at first, have won 
approval in the end. Generally, without doubt, our munici- 
pal affairs have been wisely and economically administered. 
Thank Heaven ! there is no scandalous smirch of jobbery 
or peculation upon them. The future — nay, the present — 
still presents difficult problems to be solved, vast works to be 
performed. May the future never disgrace the past. It is 
the city's good fortune that the officers who expend her taxes 
are elected by the citizens who pay them, and are, therefore, 
under no temptation to bid for popularity by prodigal expen- 
ditures. I venture to advise her never to let either dema- 
agogue or doctrinaire delude her into relinquishing this great 
advantage so long as she can retain it. 



45 

Fellow Citizf.ns : — I must conclude my address, leaving 
many topics untouched. Fifty years ago the city celebrated 
her two hundredth anniversary. She was then in outward 
appearance but little more than a village of less than twenty 
thousand inhabitants. She had no worthy public buildings ; 
her streets were ill-wrought or poorly paved ; her commerce 
had begun to tlccline, and her manufactures were still an 
experiment. The late Judge Pitman delivered the bi-cente- 
nary discourse. If at its conclusion, when for a moment he 
turned with an.xious hope to the future, the angel of prophecy 
had graciously unsealed his vision and shown him the city as 
she is to-day, with her bt)rilers enlarged, her population se.x- 
tupled, her streets improved, with her massive City Hall, her 
commodious school-houses, her splendid churches, her chari- 
ties, her comfortable houses and palatial mansions, her stately 
business structures, her numerous manufactories, her street 
railwavs, her central thoroughfares teeming with traffic and 
humming with industry, and her general aspect of metropoli- 
tan magnificence, the spectacle would have filled him with 
wonder and admiration^ We are on the threshold of a new 
half-century. Its fifty years, marching in single file, advance 
invisibly through the mysterious region of the future, bring- 
ing with them the fortunes of the city. Would we, if we 
could, lift the veil which conceals them ? Would we not 
rather recoil with fear, lest, instead of seeing the city pro- 
gressive and prosperous, her population se.xtupled again, we 
should see her lethargic, stationary or decaying ? Such mu- 
tations have befallen other cities. I do not anticipate such 
for ours. She may not grow in the next half century so rap- 
idly as in the last ; but with her great natural advantages, her 



46 

disciplined business faculty and manifold experience, her 
prestige of past success, and still unfaltering confidence, she 
has only to maintain her breed of noble men, her supply of 
intelligent, virtuous and enterprising citizens, to make her 
continuous progress assured. Let us then have faith in her 
destiny. Let us be true to her and labor for her improve- 
ment, not materially alone, but in all wise and excellent 
ways and things. Let us labor also for a truer realization of 
her great doctrine of soul-liberty, disdaining any longer to be 
satisfied with the degenerate form of it which is but little 
better than a selfish and palsying individualism, and endeav- 
oring after that grander form, exemplified by Roger Williams 
himself, which enlarges while it liberates, and which, instead 
of isolating men, draws them together in free and friendly, 
union for the promotion of every worthy public or philan- 
thropic end. Thus let us labor, my fellow citizens, and the 
city will surely grow and prosper, not only in wealth and pop- 
ulation, but also, what is infinitely better, in mental, moral 
and spiritual life and power. 



NOTES. 



(Nori-; ..J 

Aci (>Ri)iN(; to tradition. R()i(cr Williams was born somewhere in Wales, 
the exact place heint^ undetermined. Dr. Reuben A. (iuild. however, pro- 
duces a rec(jrd which he thinks ^hows that the trailition is at favdt. The 
record consists of certain entries of baptism in the register of the parish 
church in Gwinear. a small town in Cornwall. Kngland. The record is 
as follows, to wit : 

•• Willvam Williams, son of iMr. William Williams, bap. J; Nov. 159S. 
Roger, 2d son of William Williams, (Jent.. bap. J4 Julv 1600. llumphrev, 
son of William Williams, bap. 2.1 April 1625. John, son of Humphrey 
Williams, Gent. bap. at High Hickington, Devon. i6to." 

The inference is that the Roger Williams named in the record was born 
in (iwinear earlv in the vear i^kk). The question is whether he was the 
founder of Rhode Island. The date of birth, inferred from the baptism, 
corresponds perfectlv with the allusions to his age which are to be found 
in the writings of Roger Williams. I?ut Roger had two brothers, vi/. : 
Robert, who for a time resided in Providence, and afterwards in Newport, 
and a brother alhidetl to as a "Turkish merchant." Why. if the (Jwinear 
Roger was the I'ouiulcr <tt RIkhIc l-land. do not the names of these two 
brothers appear, since Roger is !iot the last name of the family in the reg- 
ister? Dr. Guikl suggests two conjectural reasons. One is that the elder 
William Williams mav have removeii from ( iwiiiear soon after the birth 
of Roger. This does not seem to be probable, because it is inferable hom 
the record that Gwinear continued to be the residence of the tamily until 
1625. when liumphrev wa-- bapti/eil. The secoiul reason is that as a rule 
only the baptisms of the eldest sons areentered of recortl, ' they being in 
the direct line of succession." and that the bajnism of Roger was entered 
because he was named for Sir Rogt r Williams, a fanu)us soldier of the age 



48 

of Elizabeth. Dr. Guild adduces no evidence to show that it was the rule 
or custom of the church to register only the baptisms of the eldest sons, 
and it does not seem probable that any such rule or custom existed. The 
fact that the eldest sons are " in the direct line of succession," does not 
afford a very satisfactory inference, for they may die childless, in which 
event the second sons succeed, and so on. The conjecture that an excep- 
tion was made in favor of Roger because he was named for Sir Roger, is 
too fanciful to build upon. I have no wish to depreciate the Gwinear 
record. The Roger Williams named in it may be our Roger. My point 
is simply that the proof as yet is not plenary; though further investiga- 
tion, which I trust Dr. Guild will diligently prosecute, may make it so. I 
take pleasure in referring the curious reader to Dr. Guild's Monograph, 
entitled " Footprints of Roger Williams," recently published hy Tibbitts 
& Preston, Providence, R. I., where the subject is discussed. 



[NOTE 2.] 

Governor Winthrop's Diary is much the most trustworthy authority in 
regard to the proceedings which ended in the banishment of Roger Wil- 
liams. Under date of January 5, 1630 [O. S.], Winthrop notes the arrival 
of Roger Williams in the ship Lyon, under date of April 12. The same 
year we find the following, to wit : " At a court holden at Boston [upon 
information to the Governor, that they of Salem had called Mr. Williams 
to the office of teacher], a letter was written from the court to Mr. Endi- 
cott to this effect: That whereas Mr. Williams had refused to join with 
the congregation at Boston, because they would not make a public declara- 
tion of their repentance for having communion with the churches of Eng- 
land, while they lived there; and besides had declared his opinion, //^rt^f 
///(' maffisfrafK viighi >iot pioiis// the breach of the Sabbath, 7ior aiiy other 
offence^ as it ivas a breach of the first table : therefore they marvelled they 
would choose him without advising with the council; and withal desir- 
ing him, that they would forbear to proceed till they had conferred about 
it." Under date of October 11, 1633, Winthrop writes : •' The ministers 
of the Bay and Sagus did meet once a fortnight, at one of their houses by 
course, w^here some question of moment was debated. Mr. Skelfon, the 
pastor of Salem, and Mr. Williams, who was removed from Plymouth 



49 

thilhcr [liut not in anv otlice. tliough lie exercised hy way of propiicsyj, 
took some exception against it. as tearing it might grow in time to a pres- 
bytery or siiperintendency, to the prejudice of the churches' liberties." 
Doubtless Williams by this •■ exception, " which subsequent events show 
was not groundless, made himself still further olTensive to the churches of 
the Bay. Under dates of December 27, 1633, January .24, 1633, O. S.. and 
Xovomber .17, 1634. W'intlirop gives an account of the proceetiings of the 
Governor and Council relative to Williams's treatise on the Massachusetts 
Charter. I'nder date of February 30, 1635, Winthrop writes: "The 
(jovernor and assistants sent for Mr. Williams. The occasion was, for 
that he had taught publicly, that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath 
to an unregenerate man, for that we thereby have communion with a 
wicketl man in the worship of God and cause him to take the name of God 
ill vain. lie was heard before all the ministers and very clearly confuted." 
The following appears under date of July S. i<'>35 : " At the general court, 
Mr. Williams, of Salem, was summoned and did appear. It was laid to 
his charge, 'that, being under question before the magistracy and churches 
for divers dangerous opinions, viz : i, that the magistate ouglit not to 
l>unisli the brtach of the first table, otherwise than in such cases as did 
ilisturb the civil peace; 2. that he ought not to tender an oath to an unre- 
generate man; 3. that a man ought not to pray with such, though wife, 
child, etc. ; 4. that a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament nor 
after meat, etc ; and that the other churches were about to write to the 
church of Salem to admonish of these errors: notwithstanding the church 
had since calle'd him to the office of teacher. Much debate was about these 
things. The said opinions were adjudged by all, magistrates and minis- 
ters [who were desired to be present], to be erroneous, and very danger- 
ous, and the calling of him to office, at that time, was judged a great con- 
tempt of authority. So. in fine, time was given to him and the church of 
Salem to consider of these things till the next General Court, and then 
either to give satisfaction to the court, or else to expect the sentence: it 
being professedly declared by the ministers [at the request of the court to 
give their advice], that he who should obstinately maintain such opinions 
[whereby a church might run into heresy, apostasy or tyranny, and yet 
///(• civil magistrate could not i>itcrnicddlc'\, were to be removed, and that 
the other churches ought to request the magistrates so tn d". " Thi< [>iv- 
7 



50 

sage very clearly shows several things, to wit: i, that at the meeting of 
the General Court. July 8, 1635, Williams and the church were both found 
guilty, the one of holding the "dangerous opinions" alleged, and the 
other of contempt in calling him to office while he was under question for 
them ; 2, that their cases were postponed, not for trial, but for sentence, 
unless Williams would retract and the church purge itself bj submission; 
3, that foremost among the " dangerous opinions " laid to the charge of 
^\^illiams was his doctrine of soul-libertj' ; and 4, that this doctrine was 
selected by the clergy for special reprobation, and the maintenance of it 
declared by them to be a good ground for banishment. It is evident that 
the other matters charged were regarded by the clergy at least, if not by 
the magistrates, as matters of minor moment. When Williams again 
appeared before the General Court he had written the letters sent by the 
Salem church to the other churches requesting them to admonish the 
magistrates and deputies. These letters and a letter written by him to his 
own church to persuade it to renounce communion with all the churches 
of the Ba\', were now further set up against him, and doubtless at the time 
greatly increased the animosity of the court. Winthrop tells us that 
Williams justified the letters and maintained all his opinions, and that, 
Hooker being unable to reduce him from any of his errors, he was sen- 
tenced. The sentence was as follows, to wit: 

" Whkreas, Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of 
Salem, hath broached and divulged divers new and dangerous opinions 
against the authority of magistrates; as also writ letters of defamation, 
both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any conviction, 
and yet maintaineth the same without any retraction ; it is therefore 
ordered that the said Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within 
six weeks now next ensuing ; which if he neglect to perform, it shall be law- 
ful for the governor and two of the magistrates to send him to some place 
out of this jurisdiction, not to return any more without license from the 
court.'' 

It will be obser\ed that the grounds of sentence are here summed up under 
two heads, to wit: "opinions against the authority of magistrates," and 
the " letters," the letters being treated rather as matter of aggravation than 
as an independent offence. It will also l^e observed that the language is 
" divers opinions against the authority of magistrates." which, of course, 
means more than one opinion. But W'inthroji mentions onl\' two opin- 



51 

ions which can be characterized as •'f)pinions aijainst the aiithoritv of 
magistrates," namelv, the opinion in regard to breaches of tlie first table, 
and the opinion in regard to oaths. Which of tiiese opinions had the 
greater influence in determining the sentence? The answer mav not be 
absolutely certain, but, if we look only to Wintlirop, I do not think there 
can be any reasonable doubt. There is nothing in Winthrop to show that 
the contemjioraries of Williams were ever seriously alarmed bv his teach- 
ing in regard to oaths; whereas we have only to note the opinion of the 
clergy in regard to the doctrine of soul-libertv, as stated bv him, to see 
how rooted was their aversion to it, anti how relentlessiv thev were bent 
upon its extirpation. Wintlirop. under date of January ii, 1^)36, after 
relating the decision to send Williams to England, uses the following lan- 
guage, to wit: ••The reason was. because he had drawn al)ove twentv 
persons to his opinion, and they were intending to erect a plantation about 
the Xarragansett Bay, from whence the infection would easilv spread into 
these churches [the people being, many of them, much taken with the 
apprehension of his godliness]." The reader will observe that the word 
here is " opinion," not opinions, thus clearly denoting that there was one 
opinion with which Williams was so identified, that Winthrop could nat- 
urally speak of it without further designation as '• //is opinion." Of course, 
the opinion meant must have been his famous doctrine, for he held no 
other opinion which was likely to disseminate itself by " infection." or bv 
reason of the enthusiasm of his lollowers, in the event of his removal to 
Xarragansett Bay. Certainly, therefore, if Winthrop were our onlv 
authority, the conclusion would be irresistible that the doctrine of soul- 
liberty was not only among the causes, but the principal cause, oi the 
banishment. 

Williams, in " Mr. Cotton's Lettei- Kxamined and Answered." savs : 
'• After my public trial and answers at the General Court, one of the most 
eminent magistrates, w hose name and speech may by others be remem- 
bered, stood up and spoke : ' Mr. Williams.' said he. " holds forth these 
four particulars : first, that we have not our lantl by patent from the king, 
but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent 
of such a receiving it by patent: secondly, that it is not lawful to call a 
wicked person to swear, to pray, as being actions of God's worship; 
thirdlv. that it iv nnt hiwiul to hear anv of the ministers of the Parish 



52 

Assemblies in England; fourthly, that the civil magistrates' powerextends 
only to the bodies and goods, and outward state of men. I acknowledge 
the particulars were rightly summed up.'" (Publications of the Narra- 
gansett Club, Vol. I, pp. 40, 41.) In his letter to Endicott he again enu- 
merates the causes, making them the same. (Pub. Nar. Club, Vol. VI, p. 
217.) In his letter to Major Mason, he says that Governor Haynes pro- 
nounced the sentence of banishment. It may therefore be presumed 
that it was he who recapitulated the four particulars. He tells us that 
Hajnes, afterwards, being in some difterence with the Bay, made the 
following memorable confession to him, to wit: "I think. Mr. Williams, 
I must now confess to you. that the most wise God hath pro\ided and cut 
out this part of his world for a refuge and receptacle for all sorts of con- 
sciences." (Pub. Nar. Club, Vol. VI, pp. 344, 345.) He means, of 
course, that Haynes thereby virtually confessed that he erred when he 
took part in banishing him for his doctrine of soul-liberty. It has been 
urged that Williams's statement does notshowthat he considered that this 
doctrine was specially intluential in causing his banishment, but rather 
the contrary, since he mentions it last. But he professes to state the 
causes as recapitulated b}' the magistrate. A complainant preferring 
charges might naturallv prefer the graver first : V")ut a magistrate passing 
sentence, if he recapitulates the grounds of it, and wishes to be impres- 
sive, is likely to reverse the order, using the rhetorical figure of the cli- 
max rather than the anti-climax. 

It will be remarked that Williams mentions two causes of banishment 
w'hich are not included in Winthrop's specification, to wit: his separatism 
and his attack on the patent. In explanation of this, it has been sug- 
gested that perhaps Williams may have been tried on all the charges ever 
lodged against him. whether new or old, and that Winthrop only specifies 
such as were new. The trouble with this explanation is. that the charge 
in regard to oaths was not new, and that Williams had never before been 
summoned to answer to any complaint of his separatism. There is an 
explanation which seems to me more probable. Winthrop probably states 
the charges on which Williams was arraigned, being the charges for- 
mallv preferred. If the trial had taken place before a tribunal accus- 
tomed to technical methods, it would have been confined to these formal 
charges. The trial took place before the General Court, which was a rep- 



50 

resell tali vf assenil>lv ratlicr than a judicial tril)iinal. It is ciinicult for a 
court compobcd of expert iawvers to confine the trialof an exciting case to 
tiie record; for a popular assembly to do so would be little short of a mir- 
acle. The trial of Williams before such an assembly would naturallv 
travel out of the record and involve his character generally. So far on 
the supposition that the trial itself actually extended to the " four particu- 
lars." Hut. let it be remembered, that, according to Wiiuhroii the trial on 
the charges stated by him was concluded in July, and the case stooil con- 
tinued for sentence simply, unless before sentence ^Villiams should '• give 
satistaction to the court." Now il is not uncommon tor even the strictest 
tribunals to allow themselves, after the accused has been convicted, a con- 
siderable latitude of inquiry into his antecedents for the purpose of deter- 
mining the kind of sentence which shall be imposed upon him. It ma\- 
be that the four particulars were mentioned with that view. Or it may be 
that the discussion between Hooker and Williams took a range wider 
than the record, ami that Ilaynes refeired to the discussion instead of the 
trial when he said " Mr. Williams //olif.^ forth these four particulars." 
Williams's statement that tie four particulars were mentioned "after my 
trial and n/zs-i-'crs." well accords with this supposition. That \\'inlhrop 
correctly reports the formal charges is further confirmed as follows : It 
was not Williams alone who was put on tiial. but NVilliams jointly with 
the Salem church, which persisted in retaining him as pastor. The Boston 
church undertook to labor with the Salem church for this. Nathaniel 
Morton, in "The New England Memorial," says "there was a public 
ailmonition sent in writing tVom the church of Boston to the church of 
Salem for the reducing of Mr. Williams and the erring part of the church." 
This writing contained a statement of "errors in doctrine maintained by 
some of the brethren of the church of Salem, tending to the disturlnince 
of religion and peace in family, church and commonwealth." The state- 
ment recited by Morton, is practically the same as Wintbrop's. except that 
it omits Wintbrop's fourth charge, which is a small matter, concerning 
liecorum rather than doctrine, and adds one further allegation of error, to 
wit: that magistrates ought not to take an oath of fidelity from "the 
bodv of their subjef ts though regenerate." It mentions neither separatism 
nor the patent. 
John Cotton is the principal authority for the view ih.ii tin linririne of 



54 

soul-libertv had nothing to do with the banishment. Cotton, answering 
Williams, imputes fraud and falsehood to his statement of "particulars," 
and declares that Williams wisely conceals the name of the " eminent 
magistrate " who summed up the grounds of his banishment, lest, if 
named, " he should be occasioned to bear witness against such fraudulent 
expression of the particulars." Of course the imputation recoils upon 
its author. Williams, with his ardent temperament, may have sometimes 
fallen into exaggerations, but he was incapable of lying- The imputa- 
tion betrays a hostile and calumnious temper which should be allowed 
for in considering Cotton's letter as authority. It should also be borne 
in mind that the letter was written ten years after the event by a man who 
meanwhile had had his own perplexities, familistical and other, to occupy 
him, and w-ho, moreover, reproaches Williams for bringing the matter up 
for discussion with him, because he so seldom attends civil courts, having 
a distaste for them. Yet he readily engages in the discussion, contradict- 
ing Williams and giving his own differing account. It is only too natural 
for men in such circumstances to persuade themselves that they actually 
remember that things were as, looking back from their later point of view, 
thev think they must have been. I do not think Cotton was above 
making this mistake. He sa3's, "The two latter causes which he [Wil- 
liams] giveth of his banishment were no causes at all, as he expresseth 
them;" or in other words, that his teaching in regard to separatism and 
soul-liberty were not among the causes of his banishment. In saying 
that the doctrine of soul-liberty was not among the causes. Cotton not 
only differs from Winthrop, but contradicts himself, for it was one of the 
errors noted in the ajimonition to the Salem church, and according to 
Morton, the admonition was signed by Cotton. Morton, moreover, a con- 
temporary of Williams, imbued with the contemporaneous feeling, makes 
this doctrine, and this only, the subject of special comment and condem- 
nation. Cotton says that the doctrine could not have been among the 
causes, because other men, known to hold it, were tolerated in both church 
and State. Evidently he either forgets or ignores the law enacted in 
Massachusetts in 1644. This law was as follows, to wit: " If any per- 
son or persons in the jurisdiction . . shall deny the ordinance of magis- 
tracy or their lawful right or authority . . to punish the outward 
breaches of the first table and shall appear to the court willfully and 



53 

obstinately to continue therein after clue time and means of conviction, 
every such person or persons shall he sentenced to hanishment." (Rec- 
ord* of Massachusetts, Vol. II, p. 85.) The fact that this enactment was 
in force when Cotton wrote his letter throws a Hood of light on his can- 
dor. It is true the enactment is aimed not a','ainst the mere holding of 
the obnoxious opinion, but against the maintenance of it. Possibly Cot- 
ton may ha\e intended to reserve to himself the benefit of this distinc- 
tion, but if so, his inexplicitness is exceedingly disingenuous. Manifestly 
what Williams means was that he was banished for promulgating or 
maintaining the opinions enumcrateil. For him. a knowledge of the 
truth imposed the duty of teaching it. He knew that the smothered tire 
goes out. that the belief unuttered perishes in the breast of the believer. 
His feeling in this respect strikingly appears in his letter to John Endi- 
cott. Endicott had been a member of his church at Salem. He had 
adopted and publicly professed the doctrine of soiil-libert\ . He subse- 
quently retrogradeii anil was concerned as governor in the shocking jirose- 
cution of Clarke, Holmes and Crandall. Williams addressed a letter to him 
on occasion of it, reproaching him with apostolic plainness and power 
for his tergiversation. "I fear. "he wrote, "your underprizing of Holy 
Light hath put out the candle and the eye of conscience in these partic- 
ulars." He was very careful himself not to put out " the candle and the 
eye of conscience" by refusing to bear witness to the Holy Light which 
visited him. 

The matter would be of little moment to the fame of Williams, if those 
who maintain that the iloctrine of soul-liberty was not one of the causes 
of his banishment, did not find it necessary to make compensation bv 
exaggerating the other causes. Cotton says that to the best of his obser- 
vation and remembrance there were only two causes: namely, " his [Wil- 
liams's] violent and tumultuous carriage against the patent," and his 
opposing the oath of fidelity. Now, when or where was he guilty of such 
"violent and tumultuous carriage".' Was it among his little fiock of 
faithful parishoners? The language is strong enough to import that he 
had raised a riot and mobbed the police. Probably if there was any justi- 
fication for such language, it was simply this, that, being tormented by 
clergymen and elders " laboring to reduce him." he lost patience and 
expressed himself with an emphasis that startled thiin. Wintbrop i^'ives 



56 

no intimation of anv \iolence or tumult. Williams tell us that his con- 
tention was that the Massachusetts settlers ought to " repent receiving 
the land " of the natives by patent; Cotton represents that his contention 
Avas that thev ought to repent receiving the patent itself and return it. 
The statements ditier materially; which is the more likely to be correct? 
The former is easily perverted into the latter, or even misunderstood for 
it. Everybody knows how trcquently such permutations occur in oral 
discussion. Everybody knows how often in such discussions men put 
tiieir own Avords into mouths of their opponents, and then condemn their^ 
opponents tor them. It was also more common two hundred and fifty 
years ago even than it is now for controversialists to draw their own in- 
ferences from the doctrines of their opponents, and then impute them to 
their opponents as the doctrines held by them. We cannot positively 
assert that Cotton did this. But we can positively assert that the doctrine 
which Cotton attributes to Williams was not contained in the latter's 
treatise on the patent, because Winthrop states the matters in that treatise 
which gave ofiense and does not mention it. AV^ill it be said that Wil- 
liams developed the doctrine subsequentl\- .- Winthrop gives some 
account of his subsequent teaching. Under date of November 27, 1634, 
he writes : •' It was informed us that Mr. Williams had broken his prom- 
ise to us in teaching publicly against the King's patent, a/id our great 
sin in claiming right thereby to this country." He nowhere says that Wil- 
liams taught that the settlers ought to repent receiving the patent and 
return it. If this was his teaching, why does it not appear in the speci- 
fication of " dangerous opinions" given by Winthrop? And why was 
it not included by Cotton himself in his admonition to the church at 
Salem among the " errors tending to disturbance of peace in the common- 
wealth "? If the doctrine was taught by Williams as Cotton says it was 
taught, and created the sensation which he says it created, the omission is 
ine.xplicable. Until these difiiculties are removed it is safest to assume 
that Williams, instead of Cotton, has stated his own doctrine correctly. 
Evidently the proper method of making amends to the natives for land 
taken without payment under the patent was not to surrender the patent, 
but to pay for the land. Williams perceived this; tor Winthrop, stating 
the purport of his treatise, tells us that he -'concluded that, claiming by 
the King's grant, they could have no title except they compounded -vitk 



57 

titc natives." A surrender of the Massachusetts patent was precisely 
wliat the King of England and the persecuting prelates of the Church of 
England wanted, and Williams was no fond lover of either King or pre- 
late that he should wish to play into cither's hands. There are s(jine who 
press Cotton's statement to a still further conclusion; namely, that Wil- 
liams maintained that both the patent and the government under it were 
alike void. No conclusion could be more erroneous. Ilis whole course 
of conduct, both while he lived in Massachusetts and afterwards, shows 
that he recognized without question the jurisdiction and legitmacy of 
the Massachusetts government "in civil things." And so likewise the 
consequences of his opposing the oath of (idelity have been magnified or 
misremembered. The German poet Goethe, when he went to work in his 
old age to write his autobiography, significantly entitled it " Truth and 
Fiction tVom my Life," because he realized how impossible it was for him 
to recollect the incidents of his life correctly, or to represent them as they 
happened without coloring or modification, since he could not become his 
earlier self again. It would have been well for John Cotton if, when, 
imder a strong bias of polemical prejudice, he undertook, ten years after 
the event, to give from memory tiie reasons why Williams was banished, 
he could have anticipated the great German in this thouglit and governed 
himself accordingly. 

[NOTE 3.J 
Giving my fancy rein. I have ventured to suppose that Williams was 
joined by his wife and children in Seekonk ; ami, if the removal did not 
take place imtil J line, the supposition is not improbable. The common 
account founded on tradition is that he removed with five other men, 
namely, William Harris. John Smith, miller, Joshua \'erin, Thomas 
Angell and Francis Wickes. (Stapless Annals of Providence, p. 20. 
.Vrnold's History of Rhode Island, p. 40.) Another account is that he was 
accompanied by Thomas Angell. (Materials for a history of Rhode Island 
collected by Theodore Foster. Col. of R. I. Hist. Soc. Vol. VII. p. S3. 
Stone's Life of Howland; note, p. 344.) Still another account is that 
the salutation. •' What Cheer." was given to Williams and Angell when 
they were on an exploring expedition betbre Williams came to the Moshas- 
suck "to settle -vilh his family there" (Col. of R. I. Hist. Soc. .Vol. 
VII, p. S3, note S.) 



5'^ 

[NOTE. 4-] 

I have been asked to reconsider my characterization of the killing of 
Miantinomi as a " wicked murder." I am aware that different men 
have come to different conclusions on this subject, according to their pre- 
possessions and to the authorities which they accept. Any thorough 
treatment of the question would necessitate an exploration, collation 
and weighing of original testimonies, such as cannot be undertaken here. 
I have adopted the prevalent Rhode Island view, which is also the view of 
the learned editor of Winthrop's diary, Mr. James Savage. The reader 
who is curious about the opposite view, can find it ably stated by the late 
William L. Stone, author of the " Life of Brandt," in a little book pub- 
lished imder the title of " Uncas and Miantinomoh." Mr. Stone, in my 
opinion, gives too much credence to uncritical authors like Cotton Mather, 
and too little to Rhode Island writers. 



[NOTE 5.] 

Roger Williams sailed for England to procure the revocation of Cod- 
dington's commission in November. 165 1. He returned early in the sum- 
mer of 1654. In a letter to John Winthrop, Jr., under date of Julv 12, 
1654, he writes : "It pleased the Lord to call me for some time, and with 
some persons, to practice the Hebrew, the Greek, I^atin. French and 
Dutch. The Secretary of the Council [Mr. Milton], for my Dutch I read 
him, read me many more languages." This statement is particularly 
interesting, from the fact that Milton, in composing his "Paradise Lost," 
borrowed largelj* from the " Lucifer." a drama by the Dutch poet, Joost 
van den V^ondel. The "Lucifer" was published in January, 1654. A 
recent English book on the subject, entitled " Milton and Vondel : A 
Curiosity of Literature. By George Edmunds-on, M. A.,"sa3-s: " It is 
at least possible that it was from the lips of Williams himself that Milton 
first heard the rhythmic lines and learnt to appreciate the poetical power 
r.nd fine imagery of Vondel's masterpiece." 



59 

[NOTE 6.] 

My aiitliority for this statement is that marvellous piece of minute 
antiquarian research. " Tiie Piantingaiici Growth of Providence, hv Ilenrv 
C. Dorr." (Rider's Historical Tracts, No. 15, p. 15S. ) In 1S70, Mr. 
Rider printed in pamphlet a manuscript purporting to give the names of 
the owners or occupants of huildings in the town of Providence, from 
174S to 1771. The manuscript was found among the papers of Kinsley 
Carpenter, who died in 1S59. "^^ ^'i*^ ^J?^ o* QS years. The author notes on 
the manuscript that it was penned from memory without patrolling the 
streets to count the buildings, and may contain some errors. It shows 
that the number of tiwelling houses in 1749 was 143, anil in 1771. 309, an 
increase of 166 in 22 years. It shows that in 1771, tiicre were 88 barns 
and 1S9 storehouses and shops, including four cooper shops, six distil- 
leries, two blacksmith shops, two grist mills, two candle works, a tan 
house, a rope walk, a paper mill, a clothier's shop, a chocolate house, 
a slaughter house and a potash works. Besides these there were 15 so- 
called public buildings, viz.: A college. President's house, court house, 
jail, work house, four school houses. Baptist meeting house, church, 
Presbi'terian meeting house. New Light meeting house. Powder house 
and Friends meeting house. 

The reader will get some idea of the growth of the city in more recent 
times from the two tbllowing tables : 

POPLLATION 
Of tiik Town and City of Provioence fro.m 170S to 1SS5. 



170S. 

174S 



1.446 
,3.91^' 
.v45- 



'755 .v'59 

'774 4-.>-i 

'776 4-355 

'75>- 4-3i« 

i7<>3 6.3S0 



iSoo 7-614 

iSio 10.071 

1S20. 1 1.767 

1S30 16.836 

•840 -3.17^ 

1S50 4i-5'3 

1S60 50,666 

1S65 .=!4-595 



1S70 t.S.iju^ 

1875 100,675 

1878 99,682 

iSSo 104,852 

1SS3 116.755 

1SS4 120.00C 

ISS^ 121.000 



6o 



VALUATION 

Of the City for Taxation from 1S32 to 1SS5. 



1S32 13, 121. 200 

1S37 14, 516, 150 

1S40 17, 195, 700 

1S45 ..23, 729, lOO 

I S50 31. 959, 600 

1855 56, 296, 297 



1S60. 58, 131. Soo 

1S65 So, 564, 300 

1870 95, 076, 900 

1875 121, 954. 700 

1880 115. 921, 000 



The city was enlarged in 1S6S by the annexation of the ninth ward, and 
in 1S74 by the annexation of the tenth ward. 



[NOTE 7.] 

A good biography- of Stephen Hopkins was until recently a desidera- 
tum. The want has now been supplied, so far as it can be with the 
materials extant, by Mr. William E. Foster, the accomplished librarian of 
the Providence Public Library, in his excellent work entitled '' Stephen 
Hopkins : A Rhode Island Statesman. A Study in the Political History 
of the Eighteenth Century," published as Nos. iS and 19 of Rider's 
Historical Tracts. 



[NOTE S.] 
Ma\or Doyle died after a short illness. June 9, 1SS6. 



LITERARY AND HISTORICAL EXERCISES 

AT Tilt 

F^IRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 

WEDNESDAY. JUNE 23, 1886. 



I. Mkmokiai. Makcii. 
D. W. Ri:i:\K.s, . . . Conductor. 



2. \''0LUNTARV OF PsALM lOO. 

Mus^ic HV J. O. Starkwhathek, Snug by the Arioii Club. 

Jules Jordan, . Diirctor. 



3. AnoREss I'.v His Honor Acting Mavor Robhins. 

Ladies ami Gcn/lciiicn : 

We have assembled to-day to begin with appropriate cereinonie.« the 
celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement 
of Providence. That the opening exercises should he held within the 
walls of this venerable edifice, from which the principles formulated by 
the founder of these plantations have gone forth with world-wide appli- 
cation, is a tribute to him who defied the persecutions of his associates 
and braved the dangers which surrounded him in the etl'ort to provide a 
haven of rest for those who sutVered for conscience" sake. 

The citv has chosen well in its selection of the place within which is to 
be delivered the historical discourse commemorative of the event it is to 
celebrate. 



62 

To portray in fitting language the sutierings, the trials and the persecu- 
tions of the first settlers of the Providence Plantations, who builded 
better than they knew, to follow and recount the many vicissitudes of our 
ancestoi-s, and to describe the changes from the town to the city govern- 
ment is the province of the historian. 

Neither is it for me to attempt to place before you ever so briefly the 
record of the growth and prosperity of this municipality from the date 
of its incorporation as a city. 

The duty which has been assigned to me is that which was intended for 
another, and which it was confidently hoped would be performed by one 
whose life has been identified with the greatest growth of the city, and 
whose position for eighteen years as Chief Magistrate qualified him more 
than anv one else to present to those who are here assembled the prog- 
ress and development of all the varied interests which have made this 
the second city in New England. 

His broad and comprehensive views of what was most needed, both for 
the good government of the community and the advancement of its wel- 
fare, which have received the endorsement of the citizens whose interests 
he endeavored to serve, has been a potent factor in placing this city in the 
advanced position which it occupies. 

No one can regret more than I that it was not permitted the late Thomas 
A. Doyle to participate in the exercises which to-day inaugurate an epoch 
in the history of this city from which in time to come other celebrations 
will date, and which would have afiorded to him as well as his hearers so 
much gratification. 

To those who are now assembled in this grand old church, and who 
have watched with pride the great advancement of the municipality, the 
day, though fraught with a memory tinged with sadness, is nevertheless 
bright with the hopes of a success far beyond that which has already been 
attaineil, and which will be uneciualled by the future history of other 
cities. 

The capabilities of its citizens ; their regard for good government and 
willing obedience to wholesome laws; the patronage and fostering care 
for its institutions of learning; its natm-al resources with their possibili- 
ties for greater developments, all combine to guarantee a prominence be- 
yond the highest anticipation of those who now participate in doing 
honor to the event which the occasion commemorates. 



63 

These principles of good government h:i\inj4 their ineepti(jn in tlie 
minds of those who framed tlie first hiws of our ancient town, are an lieir- 
loom of wliicli the citizens may justly be proud; not alone that tliey have 
been to them a safei^uarti in protection of the public jiolily. but they have 
been disseminated wherever, throughout this broad country, the sons and 
daughters of Providence have fixed their homes. So, too, has been the 
intUience of its institutions of learning, outstretching beyond measure- 
ment and molding the opinion of men and framing them for positions 
in life which have refiected the highest honor upon their native city. 
Again, fiom within its borders have been sent torlh those products of 
skilled labor which have reached to every clime, and have Ijorne witness 
to the industrv , thrift, abilitvand energy of its people. 

All these and more have contributed to make the city of I'roviilence 
renowned, and in pausing a moment to review the past and measure the 
advance which Time in its slow but sine march has meted out. every true 
citizen must rejoice that he is one of acommunitv ol" vviiose record he has 
no reason to be ashamed, and that lie has lived by the principles which 
the founders of his city enunciated and which were fostered and cherished 
by succeeding generations. 

To those of our citizens who have assembled to honor by their presence 
the anniversary of the settlement of the Providence Plantations, in the 
name ot" the city 1 extend to you a cordial welcome, and to those who iiave 
returned to their native city to join in its festivities and celebrate its natal 
day, as well as to those who come as strangers within its gates, I give 
the hearty greeting which first saluted our founder — • What Cheer." 



4. S.VLUTATOKV OOK. 

W'nkits i;v Rr.\. V. Dknison, Music I'v Prof. A. A. Statilcy 

Srxd i;v Till-: Akion Clui!. 

I. 
City of Freedom: Break forth into singing: 

Praise ye glad peo]ile the Father Divine : 
Out of great treasures, with gratitude bringing. 

Lav vour new ofVerinij on libei-tv's shrine. 



64 



Ancestors' memories sacredly keeping, 
Hallow in song their illustrious deeds; 

Millions, the fields from their sowing, are reaping 
Chanting thanksgivings in concord of creeds. 



Soul-freeing truth is the trumpet-tongued angel 

Waking the world with her voice from above; 
Here in the wild was proclaimed that evangel, 

Here rose a temple to brotherly love, 
Guarding from peril fraternity's altar. 

Consecrate refuge for spirits oppressed, 
Owning the ancient and catholic psalter, 

Anthem of Bethlehem heai-d in the West. 



Jubilant sing we our city of beauty, 

Favored of God and exalted in name, 
Foremost and fearless in patriot duty. 

Wearing her scars and escutcheons of fame ; 
Splendid at birth, as the star of the morning, 

Struggling alone with the tempest and gloom, 
Now with a host our republic adorning. 

Joying in liberty's far-spreading home. 



Free to our portals we welcome as ever 

Exiles for conscience akin to our sires. 
Bound in a fellowship naught may dissever. 

Keeping aglow the original fires. 
Freedom! Soul-Freedom! Thou kindlest devotion, 

Herald of mercy; Great Breaker of chains; 
Breathe o'er the earth, like the wind o'er the ocean : 

Nations upraised shall re-echo thy strains. 



5. Pkavi:k. 
Rv Ri:\'. KzF.Kii'.F. G. RoniNsox, ]''risi(hut Jh-oivti University. 

Alinii^lity (lotl. Kin^ of all tin.- (.'arth, who reiifiifst over all nations, 
\\ lu) sittest (Ml till- tliroiit' of Tin holiness, before Thee wouKI we how in 
hunihle revcienee anil true worship. I'nto Thee wf)ulil we hrin-^ our 
ofierinij of thanksgivinu; and praise. With gladness would we utter the 
ineinor\ ol" Thy great goodness to the sons of men. Thou wast the (jod 
of om- fathers, leading thcni up out of the Egypt of spiritual and politi- 
cal bonilage, and through them laying the foundations of a gieat nation. 
Thanks ho unto'l"l)\ holy name foi- the precious heritage of just ideas, of 
line principles and of free government which we have received from them. 
When clouds and darkness were round about them and jierils were before 
tlu'in. Thoii wast light within Ihem ; a pillar of tire in their gk)om. Thou 
diilst guide them in paths of righteousness and truth. Hlessed l)e the 
name of the Lord, our God, for all that He has wrought through them 
for the nations of tiie eailh ami tor the generations that are \et to cf)me. 

We give Thee most hearty thanks, om- Father and our (jod. that in 
Thine infinite wisdom Thou ilidst raise up and bring to these shores Thy 
servant, the loumler ot" this city: that Thou ilidsl enable him to discern so 
clearly between what is due to the authority of the civil jiower and what 
to the sacred rights of cf)nscience ; that Thou didst plant within him an 
unih ing love for truth, a persistent purpose to search tor it and to shrink 
tVom no sacrifice that he might possess and defend it; that Thou didst 
nerve him to bear with fortitude and patience his adversities, to render 
good for evil to his persecutors; that Thou didst inspire him with senti- 
ments of justice and of mercy and of Christian charity in all his dealings 
with the heathen into whose territory Thy good providence had brought 
him. and with a s|iirii of uprightness in all his intercourse with his fellow 
citizens. Unto Thee, C) God, do we give thanks that ho was alwavs and 
everywhere, according to the light vouchsafed him, Thy humble servant, 
a conscientious and i>ersistent disciple of Jesus Christ, our Loni ; ami that 
Thou madest him the teacher of principles that have emancipated 
nations. L'nto Thee. Thou whose faithfulness is throughout all genera- 
tions, ilo we give thanks for the goodly city that has arisen arounil the 
resting place of Thy taifhful servant. Thou hast shielded it tVom the 
9 



66 

sword witlioiit and tlie noisome pestilence within. Thou iiast prospered 
its citizens ; Tiiou liast increased their wealtli and liast given tliem knowl- 
edge; Ave prav that thej may never be left to forget the Author of their 
mercies, and of their manifold and ever-multiplying blessings. 

Preserve Thou to us in their integrit\ our free institutions. Dwell 
Thou in the hearts of the people, filling them with a just and holj indig- 
nation against all who would debase or corrupt them. Save Thou us 
from the domination of the impure. Grant unto us, legislators and magis- 
trates, who shall be just and upright ; who shall speak alwavs the truth ; who 
shall despise the gains of oppression, and who shall shake tlieir hands 
from holding of hril^es : who shall not be greedy of gain or of human 
applause; who shall hate evil and love righteousness; who shall be free 
from the fear of man and shall always revere Thy holy name. 

Hear Thou, we beseech Thee, oiu" pra\er for Thy blessing on the 
Chief Magistrate of the nation; on all otllcers of oiu- State and city; 
on all the people of our common countr\'. 

Accept now, O Tiiou Judge of all the earth, our thanksgiving and our 
petition. Help us to lay to heart the lessons so recently read to us from 
the biers of the dead ; forgive Thou our transgressions ; guide Thou each 
of us in the path Thou hast marked out for us; and in Thine own way 
and time bring us into the eternal rest through Jesus Christ oiu- Lord. 
Amen. 



6. Devotional Ode. 
WoRD.s BY George S. BuRLEiciH. . Music by E. K. Glcr:en. 



O Tvife and Light who deigned to bless 
Our fathers in the wilderness. 
More life, more light we ask of Thee 
To keep our free homes ever free. 



LtfC 



^7 



Wc slrclili oiii two liaiuis, I'ravcr aiul Praise, 
Above the past ami I'liture days, 
While o'er the present our full hearts 
Pour thanks for what Thv love imparts. 



Th V love, O, lover of the brave, 
We know how strong; it is to save, 
And how its living wells o'ertloweci, 
To cheer our founder's stormy road. 



He came to plant with reverent toil 
The tree of freedom in our soil. 
Ami while his faith and love survive. 
Its broadening boughs shall o'er us thrive. 



Thou Lil\', whose springs have nurseil that tree, 

Still keep our free homes ever free. 

C) not in the steel-clad arm of a tyrannous power is our trust. 

The rock that can never be moved is the law of the true and the just. 



Ciod over us — light and love, (joil uniler us — strength ami will, 

God in ami around us — truth and liberty deep ami still; 

Herein shall we live and move and our being tirmly hold, 

That the land of our love may be strong when the lloods are over it rolled. 

C) God, if we come to be crowned, we arc crowned on the bended knee, 

And for all that we fail of Thy law, we are humble in heart before Thee. 



68 

y. Historical Discourse 

By Thomas DuRFEE LL. D., Chief Justice Supreme Court 
of Rhode Is/aud. 



8. Valedictory Ode, 

Words by Prof A. Williams. . Music by Eben A. Kelley, 

Sung by the Arion Club. 



Hail, honored name, our sacred dead! 
Thy spirit great,- triumphant, free, 
O'er all our land, beyond the sea, 
On wings of light has sped; 
Speeds onward jet to other goals, 
With light and life to fettered souls. 



In every age the world is l)lest 

By those ordained to free the opprcst; 

A martyr-chief by Heaven lent to loose the shackled slave; 

A warrior stern, magnanimous, his country's hope to save 

In every age the world is blest, 

'Tis God's own arm made manilest. 



Thy task divine to lift up Truth dethroned. 
Thyself maligned, disowned. 

Yet like lone mountain peak, l)el<)veil of loftiest star. 
And touched by heaven's pure ray, 



69 



Thv mind unvieliiint^ towers, a beacon hcen from far 

The iiiijlit is clianged to dav, 

Tlie bonds that bind the souls of men 

Arc rent, ne'er to be forged again. 



I. ill tile lonii p;ean, ye jiil)iiant peojile, 

Tiic soul is released from tvrannj''s chains; 

Join in the chorus, ye bells in the steeple, 

I'loclainiing afar that (iud ever reigns; 

In glad emulation the nations of earth 

Now march to the light that heralds new ijirlh. 



Ilail prophet undaunted, blest oracle hail ! 
Souls battling for right will forever prevail ; 
All ilown through the ages, as truth shall unfolil. 
Thy trials anil triumphs in song shall be told. 
O Home of Soul-Freedom! jirolong the acclaim, 
Cease never to sing of thy guaiilian name. 



9. DOXOLOOY. 
S/(//^ by I he Arioii Club, thi Coi/i^ir/^^atiou Joining 



10. 1^i:m:i)1cti()N 
Bv iiii, Ri'.v. Daviii II. Gkkkk. 

And now unto the King Eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wiseCnid, 
be the glory ami the honor forever, and may the peace of God, which 
passeth all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge 
and love of God ami of his Son, Jesus Christ, om^ Lord, and may the 
blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, be upon us and 
remain with us alwavs. 



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